Never was intended is a bit too strong from my point of view, and therefore I would have to take issue with your conclusion that the canon was never written to be taken literally’, although I agree with why you arrived at your conclusion that it should not always be taken literally. Among other things, it has been tampered with!

Most historical information to the contrary points to the fact that Emperor Constantine and others like him had a motive for expecting the canon to be taken literally within their universes. Constantine for instance would not have gone to all of the trouble to have the canon compiled and to have the original copies strategically placed as he did and taught to the people, had he not intended for it to be taken literally.

In fact, I believe that the word of God was intended to be taken literally. The real challenge for scholars and believers today is to determine what is the word of God and what was added, deleted, co-opted, copied…and left out in the sacrosanct canon!

Unfortunately, most believers have been and are still being taught that the indefensible canon is the unadulterated word of God from cover to cover. We know better, but most ministers are afraid to tamper with historical teachings that lack verity and in many instances manuscript support. Isn’t it sad when we cannot have an open discussion about what someone wrote or claims to have been true! I subscribe to 1 Thess 5:21…prove it!

What is frightening is what happened to men like Galileo and Jesus for that matter when they dared to challenge the religious status quo. We need to be more forthright and say, you know a fuller disclosure has shown that…., so that people can get back to worshipping God and seeking God, and not the will of the canon or Constantine, Erasmus and others. Unfortunately, many Christians have become what they have criticized in this sense. Christians have openly labeled the Jews, accusing them of being stuck in dispensational theology, in their case the Mosaic Law.

Christians are stuck as well in their own form of Dispensational Christian Law, I believe, having outsourced their responsibility for pursuing full disclosure and having leaned too heavily on unproven, outdated, unverified, conflicting…sources, source materials, conclusions and paradigms!

I believe that the scientific community will soon embarrass the church, debunk and disprove much religious dogma and overthrow the faith of those who should have believed in God instead of what someone who may not have spoken for God after all wrote! How about the ongoing study of endocrinology, genetics, epigenetics as they all relate to homosexuality and other human conditions, or people who were born that way, made that way or chose to be that way. Get ready, for we are about to find out who did sin and who did not sin at all that has resulted in such conditions like intersex people! The belief of some Christians will be destroyed in an instance.

The upside is that we can get back to learning and to release the former shackles. The old model was that there is this great cosmic contest whose objective is to determine who can believe the most, based on what unknown and untested figures wrote! That’s not good! We all once believed in Santa Claus I suppose! I suspect that what we refer to as God, happens to be even bigger than the God of Christianity, Islam, Judaism….combined!

When will we simply learn to say that at times we are wrong, or that we didn’t do our homework and simply accepted what someone else wrote or said?

Among the writers assigned to write one of the books was William Shakespeare. According to Tony Browder, Shakespeare was forbidden by King James to publicize his involvement with the writing project. He found a clever way of hidding his “signature” within the material.

If you look at Psalm 46 (in King James version), you will note the 46th word from the beginning of the psalm is “shake,” and the 46th word from the end of the psalm is “spear.”

One basic truth about the Bible is that it was written in code. These codes encompass allegories, symbolism and numbers.

Rev Brown,
You are a bad man! It is high time that Christian churches move toward post-secondary education so to speak in terms of examining the Bible. Our present forms and understanding is based too much on 2 to 4000 year paradigms/interpretations that are terribly outdated. I suspect that Constantine’s intentions were noble when we brought in scholars to construct the Canon, however, it is time for sagacious post-modern human beings (with deeper understanding) to rexamine the ancient writ/interpretation of the writ and to place it in its proper context.

I believe that the church is in for a major embarassment soon, science is running far ahead of us. In the interim those who dare to challenge the status quo made end up like Galileo and others did and be excised by the church, but that is what Jesus did! Jesus challenged the orthodoxy!

Wishing you nothing but the best…your sister, Sister Tracy