Many Biblical terms and passages have several meanings; literal, metaphorical, or symbolical. Taken literally, some of them are a stumbling block to persons sincerely religious but also respectful of reason as man’s highest faculty. Such persons must not be forced to choose between religion without reason or reason without religion. Since reason was implanted in man by God, it cannot be contrary to God’s revelation. Where such contradictions occur, Maimonides suggests, it is because we take literally expressions adapted to the imaginative and pictorial mentality of the simple, unlettered
...more
