What in the Bible is 'Fictional'? 

Good video. I appreciate you for not being dogmatic and always sharing a wide range of opinions about various books of the Bible. You make me think and read more widely than before I found your channel.

Thank you for these clips, I had forgotten about that part of the discussions.

Book of Job may also be in the same category. It reads like an ancient proverb in which friends argued their 'theology' and reasoned why bad things happened to good people.

There is zero reason to think Jonah survived inside the fish

Make a video on the trinity in scripture pls

One example of fiction in the Bible would be the parables of Jesus, I think, though they're based on real people and places.

"some of the most important beliefs may or may not be true". I am shocked when a 'believer' is threatened by a word. Is there fiction/mythos/stories in the Bible? Yes, but that does not need threaten your faith. Like in Buddhism. When explained that the 'supernatural' aspects of Buddhism are not needed for the path to be followed. Some find that wonderful, others are threatened by it. We need to have trust: pisteuo: to be convinced. Not forced to believe.

Do you believe Book of Esther is largely fiction based on some historical events?

Great topic. Since Jesus cited the “sign of Jonah” being how people should know who he is, I think Jonah wasn’t alive inside the whale. I believe like Jesus, Jonah was dead for three days, then the fish spit him up and God resurrected Jonah.

Job is a fiction story but with very real messaging with important implications

Thank you,JM🌹⭐🌹Very cool JazzHead tee-shirt. Fiction=Allegory???

Greetings from AK! 🫎🐻

Interesting discussion, JM. Thanks for it. Maybe a better word than "fiction" might be "literal".

How would you respond to Robert Alter saying All of the Hebrew Bible is "Historicized Prose Fiction."

I have no issue with terms like "myth" or "legend" or "midrash" in reference to narratives in the Bible, but I tend to bristle at the use of the word "fiction." The term strips out any suggestion of a generational transmission of the old traditions behind these stories.

U dont know BIBLE to question it bro Smh

Dude Exodus has physical evidence in Arabia THE MNT. Of GOD dude your way off, smh. Bunch babble bs

I am coming to believe parts of Daniel are fiction. Apart from his failed prophecy and Darius not being known anywhere outside the Bible, the whole "and the King of Persia was forced to eat crow and admit the God of the Hebrews is Lord" reads like wish fulfilment. Nebuchadnezzar is too literary a character there.

"All of scripture is predicated on the miraculous, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, IF God can create the universe..." Yeah JM, that is a pretty big "IF" to rule out fiction in the Bible. Once you decide that, as you were taught in your youth, as you believe without evidence, sure, the rest makes sense. You have to demonstrate the supernatural before you can just wave your hand and declare there is no fiction in the Bible. Also, there is no evidence that any of the supernatural claims of the Bible are true. You must take it on faith, to argue otherwise requires demonstrable repeatable evidence, which you do not have. On a side note, Job is considered by many scholars, some theists among them, to be a fictional account meant to demonstrate a principle. To destroy the life and family of a devout man over a bet seems to me to be the ultimate betrayal. Some say, "it was the devil that killed Job's children and his livestock.' That makes it worse, why would God allow one of his best followers to be ravaged so? What message is that? "Follow me so you may prosper, unless I decide to let the devil have his way with you." That crap about replacing the children with more children afterward is no comfort to a real human being, they would still mourn the children lost. And archaeology is a hard science, to say otherwise is false. You have a habit of waving away any detracting viewpoints with little untrue comments.