BookTalk.org

Interpreting the Bible Just Got More Complicated
The English translation of the recently discovered oldest Latin version of the Gospels may be problematic for those who want to read the Bible as a literal history.

In October 2012, Dr. Lukas Dorfbauer, a researcher at the University of Salzburg, was examining the manuscripts of the Cologne Cathedral Library. He was looking at an anonymous manuscript and realized that this ancient text contained the earliest Latin commentary on the Gospels. Dorfbauer was not the first scholar to examine the manuscript, but he was the first to realize its significance: here, as part of the 100-page fourth century c.e. commentary, was the earliest Latin translation of the Gospels. And now, it’s available in English—and the implications are enormous.

The author of the commentary was Fortunatianus of Aquileia, a fourth-century North African who later became a northern Italian bishop. ...What’s most revealing about the commentary is the manner in which its author interprets his source text. Rather than treating the Gospels as literal history, Fortunatianus view these stories them as a series of allegories

...What writers like Fortunatinus and Origen show is not just that you don’t have to read the Bible literally all the time, but that for most of the Christian Era nobody thought that you should.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/interpreti ... omplicated
The Daily Beast
Candida Moss
09.03.17

Thanks LandDroid, Candida Moss is a great scholar. Her book on how the stories of Christian martyrdom were fabricated is excellent. These new early Latin comments on the Gospels are available free at https://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/469498

LanDroid

A good find but I wonder how many literalists are ready to change their poor way of reading scriptures.

I don't think they are ready for the truth of things.

Especially that Jesus died for me position. They mostly do not want to give up their get out of hell free card, even though they likely are not deluded enough to really believe in the Christian invented hell.

All but the most brain dead Christian literalist, when push comes to shove, will admit that there are no talking serpents or donkeys.

The foolishness of literal reading was well known even in Jesus' day.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03132009/watch.html

Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus, said that when asked to sum up the whole of Jewish teaching, while he stood on one leg, said, "The Golden Rule. That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah. And everything else is only commentary. Now, go and study it."

Please listen as to what is said about literal reading.

"Origen, the great second or third century Greek commentator on the Bible said that it is absolutely impossible to take these texts literally. You simply cannot do so. And he said, "God has put these sort of conundrums and paradoxes in so that we are forced to seek a deeper meaning."

Matt 7;12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Regards
DL