The creation narrative, though, occurs in a book that is historical rather than allegorical in character.

That is why a fundamentalist will interpret the Bible in they way that he does. Though it still doesn’t explain why the get ridiculously literal with parts of Ezekiel.

For a final nitpick: Evangelical Protestant Christianity has a strong midwestern component as well.

But why not interpret or criticize Genesis? My concern is that Genesis and Revelation contain scads of mythological language (and even some common motifs). Neither can be taken seriously by educated people without interpretation.

The Hebrew myths of Genesis were parcel of a regional overmyth of creation and flood, and their original hearers would’ve likely known to take them with a grain of salt, much as we know Geo. Washington was real and significant, but that the cherry tree story is absolute buncombe. Why not go into that, illuminate it, analyze it, allow it to inform?

Perhaps my examples could’ve been better chosen. Here’s another, in case I haven’t made enough a muddle of things: I’ve been told to read Song of Solomon primarily as a metaphor for Christ’s love of his Bride, the Church. Why? I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s just erotic literature. Why must Daniel or Jeremiah be exempt from context and metaphor, while randy King Solomon has his fine erotica twisted wierdly?

Is the Resurrection exempt from critical reading? Why? Its symbology is quite powerful as metaphor, as well as if taken literally. Like many Christians’ hearts, mine wavers on how to digest that powerful idea. My soul knows its Truth, and my mind doubts its phsyics.

My heart skipped a beat when I read in the Egyptian Book of the Dead (predating the gospels, alas) a line spoken by Isis best transliterated as: “They have taken my Lord, and I know not where they have lain him?” The entire 1st century Roman Empire, with its mystery cults and Egyptophilia, suddenly rose up to envelope the Resurrection narrative–not dousing it, mind you, but informing it.

The Cana wedding story, where Jesus turns water to wine, becomes very powerful when you learn of the prevalence of Bacchae in the area. Narratively, Jesus was sticking his finger in Dionysus’ eye, helping his pals keep the party up, and prefiguring his own absorption of the Dionysiac myth of the dying god who is reborn through wine.

These notions have deepened the mysteries of faith for me, and context has helped make sense of things that would otherwise drive me from communion. But I did not learn them at Southern Baptist Sunday School, nor did I learn them in the Pentecostal and nonedonminational churches I’ve attended, nor was I made aware of them as I studied for a vocation. I learned them in a secular, public, liberal university. It’s a wonder, too, that I learned anything, what with Sepoy constantly begging me to cut class and smoke sheesha with him.

Anyway, my implicit point was to be that if one section can be read as metaphor, and applied simultaneously to now, the first century, and eternity, perhaps it’s fair to open up the rest of the text for examination, using all that we know from archeology, history, textual criticism, etc.

Those whom I’m calling “fundamentalist,” attempt to “rightly divide the Word,” and exempt from criticism those passages they hold inviolable, while going absolutely apeshit with other passages. I’ve not been able to find a consistent regime to explain the process, your admirable comment notwithstanding. I hope you’ll elaborate, because I want to understand the thought process if you can diagram it more completely.

Regarding that final pesky nit: You’re absolutely correct that the midwest is rife with fundamentalism. Rod Parsley is based in Columbus. Yet as I hope to explain in the final installment, the midwest is geographically definable, while the idea of the “South,” has become something bigger.

Also, an Exodus from the rural South for blacks and poor whites to Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois after WWI carried a huge amount of Southern culture, as it were, into the midwest. They were like voices out of the Wilderness, making a way for Elvis Presley, our funky Lord and Savior Faire.

Thanks for the input, and forgive the overwhelming length of the reply. I seem to have contracted logorrhea. And again, please elaborate on your understanding of the critical regime within fundamentalism. If we’re able to uncover one, it’ll drive Sepoy into a year of depth-reading on the subject from which he may never recover. A worthy goal, if you ask me.

So it is that the events in the life of David were a text prefiguring the life of Christ and thus the text describing those events could be taken to have more than one meaning.

Figural interpretation lost some of its zanier elements with the Reformation, but the strongly Augustinian streak present in protestant exegesis kept something of that tradition alive.

I could go on for much longer about this, but I am quite busy. More to come.