Biblical Porportions Is Really Quite Small

[dumpthemonarchy]

People use this to mean big, important, which reflects their interest in things religious I guess. The media use it still, when they should know better.

But think about it, two thousand years ago, 99% of the world's population was living in villages, illiterate and innumerate. Their village was their world. People from outside their village were strangers. Time to bury this expression.

It only gets 280,000 hits on google.

A definiton is found here.

free expressions meanings, words, phrases origins and derivations

 

[karrie]

The things people find to get worked up over will never cease to amuse me. lol.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Is that amusement of biblical proportions?

 

[Kreskin]

What about Epic?

 

[lone wolf]

Gee ... an epic of biblical proportions must be wa-aa-ay big ... er, small ... er ... I'm so confoozed....

 

[Kreskin]

It is still useful. Can there be more rainfall than what Noah experienced? (I assume he was in the bible somewhere?)

 

[dumpthemonarchy]

Problem is though the media uses it. One wonders why Humanist societies don't chime in on this. Words have to mean something, and these are two words that are okay for individuals in a religious setting, but not the mass media. The bible, just fairytales.

 

[JLM]

I find the term appropriate when you consider such things as the size of Noah's ark, or in Exodus where they wandered for 40 years in the wilderness, or the strength of Soloman or the size of Goliath, or the longevity of Methusela. Makes sense to me. :smile:

 

[dumpthemonarchy]

I find the term appropriate when you consider such things as the size of Noah's ark, or in Exodus where they wandered for 40 years in the wilderness, or the strength of Soloman or the size of Goliath, or the longevity of Methusela. Makes sense to me. :smile:

All unverified information.

 

[JLM]

All unverified information.

That is beside the point "Bibical proportions" is a just a metaphor to denote size, not veracity. :smile:

 

[lone wolf]

...'sides, if your version of Bible doesn't exist, what would be its proportions?

 

[JLM]

...'sides, if your version of Bible doesn't exist, what would be its proportions?

"Exist" is in the eye of the beholder.

 

[karrie]

Is that amusement of biblical proportions?

it is indeed. lol.

I find the term appropriate when you consider such things as the size of Noah's ark, or in Exodus where they wandered for 40 years in the wilderness, or the strength of Soloman or the size of Goliath, or the longevity of Methusela. Makes sense to me. :smile:

Or the span of time that the Bible ensconces and has been around.

 

[Bar Sinister]

That is beside the point "Bibical proportions" is a just a metaphor to denote size, not veracity. :smile:

It doesn't have to be verified. It is simply an expression. One that is similar is "mythical proportions." If you like somethng that can be verified use "astronomical proportions."

 

[dumpthemonarchy]

It doesn't have to be verified. It is simply an expression. One that is similar is "mythical proportions." If you like somethng that can be verified use "astronomical proportions."

Language is culture and does not always need facts to be true in feeling. Things can be as funny as hell, yet no one worries about how funny a hellish place might be.

To hear 'bp' and see a cartoon in the newspaper today with thunder and lightning and the father explaining to the sun that the big noise it's angels bowling, makes me wonder how modern this part of the world is. To rely on thoroughly dated language to express feelings and understanding of the world we live in.

This is laughable stuff to me and we if don't question false ideas, well, progress can stop, and then civilization regresses.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

The bible, just fairytales.

No, I think that seriously underestimates the Bible's meaning and influence. It's mythology, not fairytales, quite a different thing, which I've talked about elsewhere recently, most particularly in a thread titled something like "The bible is a fairytale." I find the phrase "biblical proportions" quite meaningful. The Bible, especially the Old Testament, is full of gigantic disasters, the Noachian flood is just the biggest of them. There are many others, tens of thousands of people killed by plague and pestilence from the wrath of god, whole nations wiped out with god's connivance, and in the New Testament there's the destruction of pretty much everybody but 144,000 Jewish male virgins described in Revelation. "Biblical proportions" means on a huge scale, like 70,000 Israelites dead of plague because King David instituted a census. If you know the Bible, the metaphor works well.

 

[dumpthemonarchy]

Yer too funny DS. bp is dead end language. bp is anitiquated, yet tells us nothing about antiquity.

The archeological records aren't there to say these were big events with the numbers you state. Why not 700,000 and not 70,000 dead Israelites?

Time for a jihad against lazy, sloppy, religious language. Of jihadiic proportions.

 

[Dexter Sinister]

Time for a jihad against lazy, sloppy, religious language. Of jihadiic proportions.

What the Hell would that achieve? Language is fluid, it evolves with the cultures it's embedded in, things that are expressed lazily and sloppily now would be just as lazily and sloppily expressed in any previous or future version of it. Clarity of expression and the language it's expressed in don't seem to me to have much to do with each other, except to the extent that a particular language has richer expressions. And English I think is unequaled in that regard, it has a huge vocabulary, much of it gleaned by chasing other languages down the alley and mugging them for useful words and concepts. English is a wh0re of a language, but it's secure enough in its origins, widespread use, wealth of expression, and universality, that it can afford not to care.

 

[JLM]

It doesn't have to be verified. It is simply an expression. One that is similar is "mythical proportions." If you like somethng that can be verified use "astronomical proportions."

Absolutely correct, we have hundreds of expressions in the English language that are only approximations of the truth, if that much - "colder than a *****'s heart", but we don't ponder over whether a *****'s heart is any colder than any one elses......:lol::lol:

oooooh, it don't like the word "hooooooooooer".

 

[L Gilbert]

People make small-minded criticisms in gargantuan proportions.