How Do BAR Readers Differ? You Tell Us
From Strata in the September/October 2014 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review
We all know that BAR readers are better educated, more literate and know more about the Bible than Americans generally. How do we know? Well, we just know.
But what about BAR readers’ attitudes toward the historical accuracy of the Bible? Do they differ from other Americans? And, if so, how? We may be able to answer those questions.
A recent Gallup poll of more than a thousand American adults offered three different attitudes toward the Bible’s historical accuracy, as follows; after the question we give the percentage of people who agreed with the particular viewpoint (totaling 96 percent; 4 percent had no opinion):
Over time, the percentage of the first category has declined somewhat from earlier Gallup polls. The second percentage has remained about the same, and the third percentage has increased somewhat.
How do BAR readers compare? We are taking a poll. Cast your ballot below. We will publish the results.
We’d also like your views about the matter. Are these three attitudes the only ones? Are they described accurately by Gallup? What do they tell us about Americans (and perhaps about Gallup)? What will the answers tell us about BAR readers? And what will a comparison tell us about ourselves?
However, the answers depend on you. Please cast your ballot.—H.S.
Update, February 10, 2015: The BAR poll was open from August 8–October 31, 2014. Click here for the results!
“Strata: How Do BAR Readers Differ? You Tell Us” was originally published in the September/October 2014 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.
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This question is poorly worded. There are parables, figures of speech and such-like. When Gideon heard that a man had dreamed that a loaf of bread had rolled into the camp of Midian, neither he nor the man who he heard talking thought that this was supposed to represent bread. When Nathan told David the story of the rich man who took a poor man’s lamb, Nathan meant it as a metaphor even though David did not realize that at first. When Jesus told the woman at the well that He could give her a well of water springing up unto eternal life, He was not speaking of literal water.
Now if you want to ask: do I believe in a literal 6 days of creation? Yes. Do I believe in a literal flood that took a year to dry up? Ye.s Do I believe that Jesus literally died and was literally raised? Yes.
I think there needs to a be a couple more categories. I fall some place between 2 and 3. There are too many contradictions (2 stories of Noah, 2 stories of David and Goliath, etc) to take it literally without doing some serious mental gymnastics. Science has long since proven the creation story to be myth / parable. Besides everything I have read of the ancients said that they wouldn’t have viewed it as literal either.
That being said I do think it is more than a simple collection of stories and pseudo history. I think it is was inspired to tell us what we needed to know when we needed it. Yet the stories were inspired such that they still maintain there core teaching millenia later.
I agree that the question is poorly worded, for which polls are notorious. I answered the first reply. However, I could have answered the second also. It really depends on the meaning of the word “literally”. For example, some books and portions of Scripture are obviously intended to be symbolic, i.e. “the hills clap their hands.” If the first answer is supposed to mean that the hills literally have hands that they clap, then I would give the second answer. On the other hand, there are portions of Scripture which people try to assert are symbolic or poetic when they are not that type of literature at all. If the second answer means interpreting portions of Scripture symbolically in opposition to their actual literary form, then I would give the first response. Many people who readily accept secular accounts from the ancient world (with much less textual and other support) suddenly jump to the category of symbolism, myth, fable, etc. when it comes to Scripture. That is not interpreting Scripture “literally” in the basic sense, as literature.
My position falls somewhere between #2 and #3. I’d probably word it something like this:
The Bible is an ancient book of wisdom that brings together a hodgepodge of writings from many different sources, representing many different genres (history, poetry, myth, law, polemic, etc.). Its writers and editors were devout people of faith who may even have possessed some special spiritual insights (what we might call “inspiration”) that allowed them to grasp certain eternal truths better than their contemporaries did, and who were trying to convey the essence of those truths in a manner that could be grasped by ordinary human beings in that pre-scientific age. The Bible should not be read literally, as a textbook or instruction manual, but should instead be read literarily, as a wonderful story that is able to inspire the reader to see things in a different light.
Horrible wording of the question. You don’t take figurative things literal. If you fear God as you should, then you follow His Word, word for word.
I agree the question is poorly constructed, I fall between one and two, in that I believe the scriptures are inerrant and infallible, and should be taken as intended, yet their is poetic usage and allegory, yet these are apparent in the type of literature they are in.
I agree that the Gallop poll is poorly worded, and agree with others that it depends on how one interprets the word “literally”. I answered 1 because I take the words literally in the sense in which they were intended by the original author. For instance poetical scriptures need to be interpreted in light of symbolism, metaphor, etc.
Our bible study group recently undertook the study of Jesus’s parables. We always start out with one point of view and as we read, discuss and consult commentaries, we frequently find we have missed the point entirely. As with the story of the Good Samaritan I learned as a child, I have found numerous ways of interpreting the bible (I now think of myself as the injured Jew on the side of the road, and the Samaritan as Jesus) and each is correct with it’s own level of understanding of the message God is trying to impart to me. It is pure God sent communication. I just need to spend the time and effort to seek His message.
I’ll stick with the Catechism of The Episcopal Church:
Q. Why do we call the Holy Scriptures the Word of God?
A. We call them the Word of God because God inspired their human authors and because God still speaks to us through the Bible.
Q. How do we understand the meaning of the Bible?
A. We understand the meaning of the Bible by the help of the Holy Spirit, who guides the Church in the true interpretation of the Scriptures.
The Rev. Thomas J. Hudson, OPA
To start with there should at least be a fourth category. Something to the effect that allows one to say, “none of the above”. Quite possibly that might well gather the most votes , as evidenced by the responses already given. Either the poll was “inspired” by religious fundamentalism, or by someone trying to incite controversy. As for choice #1, only certain fundamentalists can “honestly”fill that bill. –The other two questions don’t leave much room for the rest to express what they know to be the truth in their understanding of the scriptures and their relationships with God, …so we end up trying to shoehorn our beliefs into the ignorant choices the pollsters have given. –Ignorance vs. stupidity! –Guess I am one of the stupid ones!