Fast & Loose & Literalism= Me, Annoyed

Yet again I find myself fascinated/irritated with self-proclaimed "Bible Believing" Christians who seem to play fast and loose at sanitizing, ignoring and even inventing scripture whenever the slightest shadow of hermeneutic dissonance crosses their consciousness.

The ever-dulcet Michelle Duggar just proudly proclaimed on my DVR of "18 Kids and Counting" that Jesus said to "do unto others as you would have them do for you." I can only assume that she was attempting to refer to the commandment to "love your neighbor as yourself," which, although scriptural, is initially found in Hebrew, not Greek scripture. The supposed commandment to "do unto others, etc." was actually a statement made in the Babylonian Talmud attributed to Rabbi Akiva, (often called "Akiva's One Foot Torah") but the trouble doesn't end there, because even Rabbi Akiva didn't say it. The actual statement quoted with such pride and confidence by Mrs. Duggar appears- in that form- nowhere in either Hebrew OR Greek scripture. The original statement of Akiva would most likely be considered offensive and possibly blasphemous by Christians of the Duggar's ilk, as it could be interpreted as calling into question the necessity for complete and utter belief in and/or knowledge of scripture as the means to salvation. Indeed, it pokes fun at those who do become rigid and over-convinced of their own correct path.

It calls to mind the now infamous statement of Joshua Duggar's new father-in-law, describing the reasoning behind the rather spartan wedding celebration: his statement was to the effect of "When the bible talks about 'wine' it actually means 'grape juice.'"

I'm sorry, but that wasn't what it meant. Nope. It just...wasn't. Noah did not get himself into trouble from hitting the grape juice. No group of Romanized Judeans would have stuck around at a wedding to drink grape juice. Holophernes probably wouldn't have slept through having his head sawed off if he'd been tossing back Yehudit's primo...grape juice. I could go on, but I suspect I've made my point.

I will say this- if you feel that it is a violation of your faith to drink wine, okay. 1.8 billion Muslims agree with you 100%. But please, do not make a big production of your belief in scriptural infallibility...just so long as scripture agrees with YOU.

I mean, gee, I personally would feel a lot better if what was actually MEANT when Greek scripture referred to the soldier piercing Jesus' side with a spear was "the roman soldier tickled Jesus' side with a big feather." And, hey, why not? If "saying" and "meaning" are mutually exclusive...why the heck not?

Boy howdy! I can't wait to get started on MY version of what scripture actually "means" as opposed to all those pesky, not-agreeable-to-me things that it "says!"

First up on my list: when it said in Genesis "tree of knowledge," it actually meant "tree of life."

'Scuse me while I go be immortal, k thx bai. Right?

In Summation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaqo2IhH4kw