On “Literal” Interpretation, Part 1: Nobody Does That

I’ve noticed that our culture seems to think that conservative Christians believe that the Bible should be interpreted literally. I say “our culture seems to think” this because the expression occurs frequently in popular media, whether journalistic or social. I’ve even seen some conservative Christians describe themselves that way.

That’s unfortunate.

Nobody today or in the past has ever interpreted the Bible literally. We’re not Amelia Bedelia.

I wonder sometimes whether those who question the authority of Scripture describe conservatives that way because it makes us sound, well, stupid. But I’ve learned over the decades that impugning motives is a bad idea for many reasons. Although it’s a question the critics should ask themselves.

There’s been a lot written throughout the centuries of church history on the topic of hermeneutics, or biblical interpretation. The preferred approaches have varied considerably over that time, from the imaginative allegorical approach common in earlier times—an approach that is often and rightly ridiculed (see Epistle of Barnabas 9.7)—to word-based approaches common in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to the more linguistically mature thinking thankfully more common since James Barr published his seminal work The Semantics of Biblical Language forty years ago.

But for centuries, no conservative Christian author on hermeneutics has advocated interpreting the Bible literally. Rather, the standard approach has been to read the Bible the same way you read any other written work: with understanding of stylistic practices, of the idiosyncrasies of translated works, and with attention to the culture from which the document comes—as well as, obviously, the context in which isolated biblical statements are presented.

Thus instruction in hermeneutics routinely includes these sorts of caveats:

• Context is king. You know what the author intended a statement to mean by studying and evaluating its context. It’s not legitimate to claim that the Bible says that Judas “went and hanged himself” (Mt 27.5) and “Go, and do thou likewise” (Lk 10.37). Aw, come on, Dan; nobody would actually do that! Well, actually, I’ve seen perversions of context every bit as bad.
• The Bible contains false statements. “Ye shall not surely die” (Ge 3.4) is a lie, spoken by the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and is contextually identified as such.
• The Bible contains phenomenological language, which describes things as they appear to the human senses. Solomon, the wisest man in history, says, “The sun also rises” (Ec 1.5)—and is cited by no less an authority than Ernest Hemingway!—and that is not a scientific error but a figure of speech. A figure, incidentally, that the weatherman uses every day without being characterized as a scientific ignoramus.
• The Bible uses pretty much all the recognized figures of speech. (Note that the linked volume runs 1160 pages and was first published in 1898! Nobody takes the Bible literally.) As just one example, Isaiah says that when God consummates history, “all the trees of the field shall clap their hands” (Is 55.12). Now this clearly does not mean that one day trees will have hands (Ents? Baum’s trees along the way to Oz?) and will also have emotions of joy that they express by clapping. It also doesn’t mean that the wind will blow the leaves of the trees together in ways that sound like clapping. Rather, it’s metaphorical language on multiple levels:
  • It uses anthropomorphism in speaking of trees as having hands.
  • It uses anthropopathism in speaking of trees having emotions and expressing them by clapping.
  • It then uses synecdoche in presenting trees as representing the whole of creation. Paul expresses the idea of the verse in Romans:

¹⁸ For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. ¹⁹ For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. ²⁰ For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope ²¹ that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. ²² For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now (Ro 8.18-22).

So we interpret the Bible like any other work of literature—though that does not imply that it is merely an ordinary work.

Next time: when translating at all is to miss the whole point.