Sometimes people ask if I take the
bible literally. My answer is, “what do you mean by literal?” Do
I take the question literally?
What does the word literally even mean?
Some would say, it means that the text
literally means what it says. That is reasonable. But there is also
the intent of the writer that must be taken into consideration.
Taking words at their face value and ignoring what the intent of the
writer was trying to communicate, is not taking it literally from my
viewpoint.
When someone writes about a sunset, we
know what they are talking about. Most of us know the sun does not
really set in the evening. The sun pretty much stays still and the
Earth rotates on its axis. This means light from the sun changes on
the planet as it revolves. But we still know what is meant when
someone says “sunset.”
So if we take it literally in the
strictest sense, we would have to dismiss the word sunset as
ignorance, because we know the sun does not set. Yet we do know what
the intent is, and take the intent literally.
Or to take another example from the
natural world. When it is cloudy we say the sun is not shining.
What??? The sun is still shining, but is above the clouds and we
cannot see it. Yet we know the intent, or literal meaning, when
someone says the sun isn't shining because it is cloudy.
So if someone wrote .. “It was cloudy
at sunrise, but the sun came out around noon and it was a clear day.”
We all know what that means in English, but in the strictest literal
interpretation, it is total nonsense. The sun didn't rise, the sun
didn't just appear at noon and so forth.
We understand the basics of language,
and understand the meaning the writer is communicating based on a
variety of things. All of those things combine to give us a “literal
meaning.”
So why is it, when we come to the
scriptures, that we lose sight of this very common sense way of
understanding language?
To say a certain story is meant to be
allegorical, is taking it literally, because that is the intent of
the writer. We know this by the context and by the type of literature
involved.
When Jesus told the parable of the
farmer out sowing seeds, we know he was not talking about farming
practices, or giving advice on planting. It is clear there is
something else in mind there from the writer. Parables are told to
make a point, as a teaching tool. To take them as otherwise is to
misinterpret the intent of the writer.
The scriptures are inspired by God, and
are intended to give us some insight into the spiritual world. It is
God's method of communicating truth to us.
God uses language. It is not some
mystical thing that only a few can see or understand.
We should try to understand them the
same way we understand any piece of written material.
Understand the words used, their
meanings, then the context, and the intent of the writer as much as
possible from that context.
To me that is what literal means.
There are two ways to translate. one is word for word. This is very “accurate” but it is often hard to read. There are differences in language that make translation difficult. Word for word can actually obscure the intended meaning as seen in the context.
