I gotta say for someone that’s seems to be opposed to literalism, your response seems pretty verbose.
I believe that literalism fundamentally obfuscates the spirit and intent of the Bible.
I have a hard time following the spirit and intent of this quote because fundamentalism should be the furthest thing from obfuscating.
Literalism is simply incompatible with these core principles of Christianity; they cannot be expressed literally.
But I was referring to the afterlife specifically, if literalism is impossible how do we Christians have the same traditional view of it?
Translation from one language to another always results in an inexact interpretation of words, meanings, and context.
Maybe not enough people are aware of the inexact interpretations, or they don’t care enough to remain consistent but common sense should be universal regardless of what language one speaks.
Greek had many verb forms that do not exist in English, and Aramaic uses different verb forms depending on whether the subject is male or female.
Well that’s why prefacing is important because if paid attention to it should help avoid confusion.
Aramaic was the native language of Jesus and the one he mostly taught in, Aramaic is structurally and grammatically very different than English, as is the context in which the words were spoken, written, and then read today.
Context matters in the English language too.
If morality is based on the will of God, then it is a matter of the personhood of God, which is a personal belief that is absolute, but by definition, it is not objective.
Now look who’s being overly literal.
