Board index ‹ Bible

[Plastic]

It can't be both. Is the flood story a literal historical account or a metaphorical story for... Something? Some Christians say it's only metaphorical but then how do you explain the teaching of creationism in public school science class? How do you explain the Noah's Ark museum dedicated to a literal interpretation? If the Bible is literal, how do you explain all the inconsistencies with reality in some stories such as the flood story? I don't understand how some say the Bible is literal while others say it's all just a metaphor. Can I get a clear answer one way or the other?

[jimwalton]

The Bible is a rich literary collection containing music, poetry, metaphor, allegory, archetypes, parable, hyperbole, metonymy, irony, simile, and many other literary forms, as well as genres such as prayer, prophecy, blessing, covenant language, legal language, etc. We should take it as literal where the author is writing literally, and we should recognize literary genres where the author is using them. Our goal is to discern the intent of the author. All valid interpretation of every sort is founded on the recognition of what an author meant.

From Validity in Interpretation by E.D. Hirsch:

"[I]f we banish the author as a determiner of his own text’s meaning, we are left with no adequate principle for judging the validity of an interpretation. ... To banish the original author as the determiner of meaning is to reject the only compelling normative principles that could lend validity to an interpretation.

"The most important argument to consider is the one stating that the author’s intended meaning cannot be certainly known. It is certainly true that we cannot get inside his head to compare his intent with my understanding of the words and meaning. Yet this obvious fact should not be allowed to sanction the overly hasty conclusion that the author’s intended meaning is inaccessible. It is a logical mistake to confuse the impossibility of certainty with the impossibility of understanding. It is a similar mistake to identify knowledge with certainty. The issue is not whether certainty is accessible to the interpreter but rather whether the author’s intended meaning is accessible to the reader. Is correct understanding possible? If it is not, there is no such thing as communication, and all alleged communication is an illusion.

"The distinction between the present validity of an interpretation (which can be determined) and its ultimate correctness (which can never be) is not, however, an implicit admission that correct interpretation is impossible. Correctness is precisely the goal of interpretation and may in fact be achieved, even though it can never be known to be achieved. We can have the truth without being certain that we have it, and, in the absence of certainty, we can nevertheless have knowledge—knowledge of the probable. We can reach and agree upon the most probable conclusions in the light of what is known.… Such knowledge is nevertheless objective and founded on well-established principles."

[Scape211]

It's also fair to note that the bible wasn't written with the idea of 'the bible' in mind for most of these authors to my understanding. Some were writing letters to specific churches, some writing poetry or personal messages, others capturing wisdom they had learned, writing their own accounts, recording others, etc. It was later assembled as canon due to its overall acceptance by the church for its divine inspiration.

This is why it's hard to nail down the bible into a specific sense of being one thing. We need to understand the context of it to give it the proper voice. As Jim said, it can range from each given author and text.