I started reading Genesis. I don't understand how some Christians can take this literally. I think that the people who take this literally are people who take everything literally. There are people who are incapable of understanding metaphor, therefore they are incapable of seeing hidden meanings, the meanings that can only be expressed by Metaphor. Christianity is so entirely metaphoric, in comparison to Buddhism which isn't at all. Understanding Christianity takes much more imagination--because that is what it takes to understand metaphors--than Buddhism. Buddhism is the only other religion that I feel I have more than a cursory knowledge besides Christianity. I like Buddhism, but I like Christianity better. I think it's deeper.
I think people forget that the Bible was written by men, spiritual types, but they were still just men. Genesis says that Adam and Eve ate bread, but that would be impossible, since crops and wheat hadn't been born yet. In Genesis it said that God punished the snake by making him crawl on his belly and eat dust the rest of his life, but snakes don't eat dust. They eat small animals. However, a person writing this without any scientific knowledge, and a primitive mind, might think that was what they eat, because they hadn't any kind of zoological knowledge at that time, nor had the person ever observed a snake closely.
 |
| Dietrich Bonhoffer |
