Literally - speechless

In this blog, I'm responding to the recent thesis that young people, who might otherwise want to engage with church, are put off because they don’t know which bits of the Bible to interpret literally and which metaphorically. In particular, they are taught to dismiss a 6 day creation by the science that they are taught and then wonder which bits of the Bible might also be untrustworthy. The argument then goes that we need to insist on a literal interpretation of all scripture to guard against this reason why young people are leaving the Church. 

A simple observation that most children continue to trust their parents after the devastating revelation that Santa isn’t real might be sufficient rebuttal for many, but for those who want a more detailed response, read on:

In my experience, the perceived irrelevance of the Church isn’t to do with a lack of literal Biblical interpretation, but to the implacable unwillingness to engage with anything that even hints at something other than that. Instead of reasonable debate, as the fear of being infected by liberalism descends, so the walls of certainty go up and the doors to dialogue slam shut. It then becomes a process of judgement. Who is in, who is out, who believes correctly, who is in error, who is in church, who is leaving church, who is out of church.

Dear God, forgive us, no wonder we seem irrelevant.

In truth, I know of no-one who believes the whole of the Bible literally. But if we are supposed to, which version am I to use for my literal interpretation? The anointed KJV (that introduced the name ‘James’ to appease their sponsor, even though it isn’t in the text) or the NIV (that uses the word ‘control’ three times in a single passage, despite it not being in the original)? Perhaps everyone should gain a doctorate in Greek and Hebrew and ideally Latin (for the Vulgate). But then, do we focus on Dead Sea material or other ancient texts? Because unless I can understand it, I have to trust someone else’s understanding, someone else’s translation, someone else’s interpretation and it is no longer what God said literally, but what someone else thinks it is – and God forbid such a dangerous thing…

Isn’t hyperbole wonderful 😊

Seriously though, do I really need to believe that the gates of heaven are made with pearl, that some angelic beings have multiple sets of wings and swords in their mouths? It is clear that even those who espouse a literal interpretation of early Genesis do not take everything in scripture at face value. Women lead, women teach (thank God), we eat Pork, no longer stone people for adultery etc.  So, in practice, it is an issue of how we decide what is current, what is contextual, what is absolute.

We rightly read different types of literature differently: Poetic language in the psalms, in Song of Solomon contain no less truth than other scripture, but that truth is found in the poetry. “The Lord is my shepherd” isn’t literally true – we are not actually sheep and God doesn’t have a job as a shepherd. But we know the profound truth nonetheless, it isn’t rocket science! Similarly, dreams and visions in scripture always require God to interpret them, they are never understood literally (Daniel or Joseph for example) – but that doesn’t mean that they contain less truth. So, when we read apocalyptic scripture, full of visions and dreams, why would we do anything different? When Luke says he has researched and written an orderly account, we read His Gospel and Acts in that light; the sequence of events is as historically accurate as Luke can manage. When we read John, his purpose is explicit but different, so we expect his ordering of events to be significant, but not necessarily as they occurred. And in all these different cases, we seek for the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth, because that’s what scripture says we should do.

So, far from being a slippery slope, we are really only left with a few passages out of the whole of scripture that might be ambiguous, in particular, early Genesis. But, in truth, how many people have met Jesus as the result of being persuaded that God created the universe in 6 literal days? On the other hand, how many people have fled the church because their faith was destroyed when someone pointed out that you need to use your brain and interpret different types of scripture in different ways?

It isn’t that people don’t know which bits of the Bible are trustworthy, it is that they discard the whole as unreliable because of the insistence on a literal interpretation of the creation story which, with good reason, they simply cannot believe.

No good scientist will claim that the current model of evolution or big-bang are true – they will simply say that those theories fit the evidence better than other theories. They will point out that the theories make predictions and that research has so far demonstrated those predictions to be accurate. They will be open about the holes in the theories, they will acknowledge that new evidence might cause the theories to be modified. All of that is good science, rational and reasonable. To insist, that despite this, you must believe in a 6-day creation, on the spurious and patronising grounds that you otherwise won’t know which bits of the Bible to trust, is absurd.

Of course, there are some in the scientific world who have a different agenda who will insist on the theories being literally true – just as there are those in the church who do the same with the Bible.

I believe that a five-minute conversation about how to interpret different types of literature within the Bible would free many to encounter the God who we all believe is the author of creation.

Which is why I think the starting premise that we need to interpret everything literally because otherwise we are on a slippery slope, and who knows where it will end, is unhelpful.