[ElProximo]

Originally Posted by Livia

...... pick and choose the bits of the Bible they're going to fight about. Yesterday, Dave made it clear he believed that God created man in his image because it says so in the Bible. He also had his hair cut, although it says, quite clearly in the same Bible, that having your hair cut around your temples is punishable by death. You can't pick and choose the bits you want to believe. It's either God's word, or it's not.

You don't understand your own heritage apparently and David does.

First off - You SHOULD pick and choose what bit APPLY TO YOU and which apply to Israelites and laws which were ONLY FOR THEM and for NOBODY ELSE (which includes David).

First off .a) In the same way you have basic reading comprehension skills you apply to all kinds of literature you could then apply those same basic skills to reading a bible.
When an author is describing real people in real places in real time then you accept the text is 'literal' (as people use that term now),
and,
when an 'allegory' is being communicated then you simply take that as 'allegorical'.
A poem or a parable MAY be based on 'real people in a real time' but you understand it's meant to communicate the lesson or wisdom or 'idea' and not serve as 'literal information about the people in the poem'.

The vast majority of this is not complicated even children can do this seemingly 'instinctively' once they have basic reading skills,
but,
certainly adults ought to be able to do it and easily sail through 90%+ of the Bible without acting 'confused' over what the text is doing.

But anyways, nice job being completely ignorant of your own history. Even David knew better.
He, correctly, did not pick was was NOT offered to him in the first place.