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Sampling the Bible’s greatest hits (as I see it… humbly)
The Prodigal’s son. The Good Samaritan. These are some of the best-known Biblical stories. People of all faiths know about them — you don’t need to be a christian to respect the message these stories teach. Indeed, these stories have become some of the central stories of our culture.
These stories, of course, were not literally true. They were stories attributed to Jesus in the Gospels. According to the Gospels, Jesus routinely told allegorical stories, also known as parables, to help him teach complex concepts to his audience. Obviously, Jesus, the greatest spiritual teacher of all, believed in using allegories to describe spiritual truth. I guess I don’t understand why some people have so much trouble accepting the fact that much of the Bible is in fact allegorical, and that many of the stories from the Bible we are so familiar with are actually stories, at best loosely based in fact, aimed at teaching us spiritual truth.
Just as there was no Prodigal’s son and no good Samaritan, there were no Adam and Eve, no talking serpent, no apple, and no Ark that saved all creatures except for the unicorn. It’s pretty clear that it took more than six days to create the world. Even where stories might be based upon historical fact, oftentimes they have evolved and been exaggerated. For example, it is clear that the Israelites…
