Accepting the Scriptures as sacred, but not literal is simply too much of a jump for some people. We here in technologically driven America and the digitally oriented West, not to mention the Aristotelian thinking logic, are just too empirically driven to handle mystical truths. We can. We just don’t want to, and we’re afraid what that might mean if we did.
We’re not comfortable with sacred stories.
The Bible is written in metaphors and allegories. Jesus spoke in parables. Thre are books of poetry and similies abound. And yet we in America feel this need to exegete and divide the Greek and Hebrew words into tense and such minutia that we miss seeing the trees in the trees in the forest of intellectualism.
Richard Rohr put it this way, “We look for empirical truth when the stories are full of mythical, symbolic images. In order to understand our Scriptures, we must be willing to look for the symbols, not just the historical reporting.” Going even beyond literal historic reporting, many feel that the Bible was done through “automatic writing” wherein the authors didn’t have control of their thoughts of hands and were forced to write what God was saying to them.”
Looking at some of the things the authors wrote should convince us that wasn’t always true- if at all.
Too many are admiring, even worshipping, the Temple, in awe of the architecture, while Jesus is walking away from the temple and reminding them that a new temple would be elevated. They never got it. We still don’t. And, until we allow for some unanswered questions and become comfortable in living in the mystery that is the Spirit, sacred stories will constantly be forsaken as our egos try to intellectualize each verse and word.
Think mystery- think sacred!
A few, very few years ago, my whole picture of Bible changed. It was a painful, drawn-out process. I began to see the sacred stories much as you have described here. It is difficult, very difficult for anyone steeped in traditional Christianity to make the shift. It is difficult, but not impossible. I am living proof of that.