#scripture interpretation

I think the Bible has a lot of content meant to be taken literally, and some that's meant to be symbolic. The general rule of thumb is to take it literally unless there's something in the context of the passage you're reading that suggests a figurative or symbolic meaning.

Examples: Exodus 20:13, and Deuteronomy 5:17 both say "You shall not murder." There's no figurative meaning here. The text says what it means and means what it says. The vast majority of Scripture is like this.

Daniel 7:2-8 reads, "2 Daniel declared, “I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea. 3 And four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another. 4 The first was like a lion and had eagles' wings. Then as I looked its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man, and the mind of a man was given to it. 5 And behold, another beast, a second one, like a bear. It was raised up on one side. It had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth; and it was told, ‘Arise, devour much flesh.’ 6 After this I looked, and behold, another, like a leopard, with four wings of a bird on its back. And the beast had four heads, and dominion was given to it. 7 After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. 8 I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things."

This isn't literal. Daniel isn't seeing actual kaiju coming up out of the ocean. How do we know that? From the context. The first clue is Daniel 7:1, the verse that precedes the bit I quoted, where the text states that this is a dream. Dreams are often symbolic. But there's more than just that. If we continue reading down to verses 15-18, we read that an angel tells Daniel what the beasts in his dream are. V. 17 reads, "These four great beasts are four kings who shall arise out of the earth."

When a Biblical text is meant to be taken figuratively or symbolically, the text will tell you. Either it will say it plainly, like in Daniel 7:17 quoted above, or other context clues will give it away. The type or genre of the text in question plays a part, too. Dreams, visions, songs, and poetry can all be figurative. The Psalms, which are all songs, often contain hyperbole, exaggeration to make a point, like when David says that God makes his feet like the feet of a deer (Psalm 18:33), or says that he floods his bed with his tears (Psalm 6:6).

So, generally speaking, take the Bible literally unless the context says otherwise. And if you come across something specific you're unsure about, you should definitely study it out. And if you're not sure how to do that, you can ask me, or your pastor or another teacher at your church, or ministries like GotQuestions.

It is exceedingly trendy to devour religious information of all kinds through the lens of secular scholarship, for either the sake of general knowledge, or for the sake of an artistic adventure. For either of those purposes, and certainly for the purpose of actual religious learning, the higher-critical approach fails on every level. The biggest perpetrators of this online are Genetically Modified Skeptic and Religion for Breakfast; the biggest print perpetrators are Bart D. Ehrman and George Harris. This method fails to accurately describe and convey the concept of religious orthodoxy, and therefore fails to accurately convey controversies within religions; it also fails to anthropologically contend with religions in a way that is honest and charitable; it denies not only the very concept of truth, but also the very concept of literary analysis. 

Much of the basis for this argument is rooted in vintage anthropology-- I preface “vintage” because anthropology has changed a great deal in the last 100 (even 50) years, and has come more and more to reflect the higher-critical method of hermeneutics, of course applied to secular cultural artifacts. In the past, anthropologists did not seek to study other cultures as a way to change their own, or as a way to frame their own. They studied it for pure passion. They studied it for themselves. An anthropologist doing similar good work today is Daniel Everett who wrote the sympathetic, raw, and amazing book Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle. A main reason why Everett’s work is so effective is because it takes the word of the Pirahã people (the subject of the book) as true. This makes the book strikingly intimate, especially because it is told from Everett’s own perspective. We thus get a greater understanding of the culture-- a highly mysterious and un-understandable culture at that. He writes, “‘I mean, what are you going to do to him for shooting your dog?’ ‘I will do nothing. I won’t hurt my brother. He acted like a child. He did a bad thing. But he is drunk and his head is not working well. He should not have hurt my dog. It is like my child.’ Even when provoked, as Kaaboogí was now, the Pirahãs were able to respond with patience, love, and understanding, in ways rarely matched in any other culture I have encountered.”

A key problem with the higher-critical method is that it applies a hermeneutics of suspicion, rather than a hermeneutics of trust, as vintage anthropology did. The passage above would read much differently, and be much less revelatory, had Everett followed the encounter with an insistence that the Pirahã must not actually be so compassionate, and must, in fact, be putting on a show to fool outsiders for more canoe money. Just as that is unsatisfying, so too is a hermeneutics of suspicion that insists Jesus said to care for the poor in order to manipulate starving Jeudeans into joining his “movement”. Not only is it unsatisfying, but it makes no sense. The higher-critical scholar must invent new motivations seen nowhere else in the text, or in adjoining texts of the day, to justify what is essentially a headcanon. It assumes too much, and what it assumes is an insult: people do not say they believe what they do because they believe it-- they have ulterior motives. The higher-critical method demands you see all people as charlatans.

We should notice that this is an anti-historical method as well. Historians do not make a habit of assuming primary sources are lying unless there is extremely good reason. I’ve studied the writings of Ibn Fadlan on the rituals of the Vikings, and not once did a professor or a critic write that he must’ve been making up the horse-killing for the sake of making barbarians appear worse than Muhammadeans. 

The method is also unliterary. It is possible for an atheist to read the Bible (or any scripture, for that matter) and encounter it as a complete work of fiction, whilst still applying the usual rules of textual analysis and letters. It is possible, even in the context of “fiction” for interpretations to be baseless and wrong. We hear in school there is no such thing as a wrong answer in literature, but be assured, there is. There are analysis, conclusions, and summaries that are disconnected from the text so to have nothing backing it up for any kind of merit. For example, if someone were to say, “The theme of Hamlet is that love conquers all,” that would be a conclusion so wrong you’d probably assume the speaker was pretending to have read it. The same is true with the Bible, and with all other scripture. The theme of Maccabees is not that the oppressed should take their torture lying down and there is nothing in the epistles to suggest the Apostle Paul was gay. The latter is fanfiction and the former is active subversion-- look out for that. 

You may believe I want only the Bible to be interpreted in such a way. But this would be wrong. I am frequently disgusted by the mistreatment of other sacred texts; in the HCM, this is particularly suffered upon the Quran. My insistence against the HCM is not only religious, but born of an anthropological conviction. I love people; the whole world is my people. I love to study them, to learn about their experiences, and to read what they have written. It breaks something in my heart when even documents I disagree with are encountered as if they are intentionally lying. The Quran was written by a man, and I believe that man believed what he wrote to be true, and I believe that those who believed him really did. I do not like to be taken for a liar, and I assume the feeling is the same through all people.