Quote for the Day

by davidthayer

The approach adopted by the literalists kind of rings of the concept “what does it profit a man to gain the whole world if he loses his soul.” Fundamentalism ought to have going for it the simple idea that one can read and understand the “plain meaning” of scripture without resorting to symbolism or allegory. But if preserving the “plain meaning” of a text requires etymological parsing and other techniques, it starts sounding like the “plain meaning” isn’t so plain after all, and the author of the text might have been trying to communicate something deeper than the mere words. Perhaps the author is using the text to communicate metaphor or allegory?

Peter Sean Bradley, commenting on arguments for a literal 6 days of creation.