A Good Review of Why Biblical Literal Reading is Problematic

The title of this post probably should be the summary of this post. Recently, I have read the article “Should Literal Interpretation Enjoy Default Status?” published in the journal, Perspectives in Science and Christian Faith. I am a member of the American Scientific Affiliation, so I get articles sent to me before they are officially published. This specific article will be coming out soon. It is written by John W. Hilber who teaches at McMaster Divinity College.

Literal Interpretations of Scripture often are very problematic. It is quite easy to see why a “plain reading” of the Bible by Christians is fraught with errors. I want to go over some of his main points.

Literal interpretations of Genesis mess up what is known and what is being discovered about the world: Per Hilber, “‘literal interpretation by default’ is also the reason some Christians in science hold steadfastly to young-earth creationism in spite of what their knowledge of the scientific evidence might otherwise lead them to believe. They are convinced that proper submission to biblical authority is bound up with literal interpretation.”

But what is the correct literal interpretation of the Bible? The King James Version? The NIV? The Good News Bible? An English translation derived from interpretations of Hebrew and Greek? What your pastor tells you over the pulpit is the correct literal reading? Augustine has written that an understanding of the natural world is a very helpful way to experience God. Thus, NO literal reading is necessarily required. For example, in his Sermon 68, he states, “Others, in order to find God, will read a book. Well, as a matter of fact there is a certain great big book, the book of created nature. Look carefully at it top and bottom, observe it, read it. God did not make letters of ink for you to recognize him in; he set before your eyes all these things he has made. Why look for a louder voice? Heaven and earth cries out to you, ‘God made me.’” I find it interesting when fellow Christians tell me that Augustine is wrong here. I mean, this is a big church father who was highly educated. The average churchgoer is absolutely sure Augustine is wrong about God’s presence in nature? Hmmm…

Augustine of Hippo

Inference: Per Hilber, “…speakers use words to create a context within
a broader cognitive environment in order to guide listeners to infer the speaker’s informative intentions.” In other words, Biblical passages (for example, those written in the English language) are written for clarity; for the “needs of the listener“; for the need of being clearly stated. Translators of today’s modern Bible versions are writing for clarity and not for literal interpretation. Modern wording in a Bible probably never expresses the original meaning of the Hebrew and Greek texts exactly. A good article about context in language is here.

Non-literal expressions of time: When we look at time intervals in the Bible, many of the associated passages fall into the category of “utterances” which can be defined as “…metaphorical interpretations of a word combination whenever a metaphorical interpretation was available.” Here is a poor example. I get very bored when waiting for my car to get serviced. I might say (and probably have said), “It took 3,000 years for the dealership to get my car ready today.” Actually, knowing myself, I probably have said this statement many, many times. In the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, there is good research to suggest that such time blocks (for example, God’s 6 days of creation and 1 day of rest) were meant to be metaphorical. There is interesting fMRI evidence that our brains are set up to use non-literal inference when processing literal meanings. In other words, when I say, “It took 3000 years” (see above), you can interpret my statement as “It took a long time. John was probably bored.”

Image from Space.com

Fear: Hilber writes, “Some fear that if Genesis is not literally interpreted, then truth telling, the veracity of Scripture, and even the core of confessional Christianity are threatened.” I don’t know what to say here. Going back to Augustine, he was pretty clear that time intervals in the early chapters of Genesis are extremely unclear. In order to understand this aspect, consider section 3.8 of Augustine’s De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber. A good translation is here. Augustine makes it clear that literal translations of the early Genesis chapters are fraught with problems.

Is there fear when a church leader tells the laity that there is only a literal translation of the Bible? I very much think so. This fear, I believe, is of the unknown. The love of God from a Christian perspective is perhaps terrifying. I cannot imagine such a Divine Entity loving me and all things eternally and in real time. This is beyond any structural understanding of our reality. In Paul Tillich’s Dynamics of Faith, he clarifies what the word, “myth”, actually means. It means “mythos” or “stories of the gods.” Why can’t this word be used in Christianity? The myths presented say in Genesis or Exodus are very much the stories of God’s interaction with reality — beyond our human understanding.

A) God who loves reality (including you and me) unconditionally and B) God who loves eternally including this exact moment in time leads to C) perhaps the best way to understand God which is D) done by reading the Bible as an interpretation but not as a wooden, fragile literal reading.

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