Is there anything in the Bible in support of a literal interpretation of the Bible? Anything explicitly against it (not just pointing out inconsistencies and all that)?
If there isn’t, what’s the argument of literalists for a literal interpretation?
(Atheist rants not welcome. Yes, we know, fiction and all that)
Basically, it’s all in the style of language used. Genesis 1 (and perhaps 2-3), Psalms, much of Job thru Song of Solomon, prophetic visions- such as in Revelation, Jesus’s parables and some of His sermons are in poetic styles. However, the rest of Genesis, most of Torah, Judges through Nehemiah, the non-visionary/didactic portions of the Prophets, and the Gospel/Acts accounts of Jesus’ & the Apostles’ miracles are put forward very matter-of-factly. Jesus Himself seems to view the flood of Noah, Abraham, the destruction of Sodom, David, Solomon, Elijah, Jonah & many other OT events & persons as historical.
Now, where’s the argument that what I view as the literal parts are meant to be taken non-literally?
Most simply in the fact that many of them, if taken literally, are wrong.
Now, I know this passage is intended to apply to the Revelation of John only, but many have misused it to justify literalism in the whole bible, because it comes at the end of the last book of the bible.
“The” bible is and always was a collection of documents, the book shelf of a particular teacher.
As such they were collected from a lot of disparate sources, and undoubtedly the authors of all of those documents would find fault with all the others.
Any particular cites? I don’t mean to nitpick you to death. Promise. I am just curious to see whether he is referring to the persons and events or to the scriptural recollection of them. I would like to see Jesus refer to the books more than to the persons or the events themselves.
That is, unquestionably, a very strong argument, if not the strongest. I would like to obviate it for the purposes of this thread, though.
Now, that’s exactly what I am talking about. It is, in fact, limited to the Book of Revelations but it is a start.
If any part of the bible were to be taken literally, I would expect there to be a literal statement of that. Something like “this is the literal truth” or “this means exactly what it says, no more or less”. The fact that there isn’t anything like that means we would have to rely on a non-literal interpretation of text to infer that a literal interpretation is required. Basically, a literal interpretation is not even self-consistent (nevermind statements that contradict outside sources).
For example, a literal interpretation of the Revelations verses quoted by Fear Itself do not support a literal interpretation of the Bible. Literally, they warn against modifying the text, but nothing about interpretation. Only their non-literal interpretation would suggest a literal interpretation is required, thus cutting off the base of the argument.
Actually it does apply to the whole Bible and can also be seen in Deut 4:2, 12:32, Prov 30:6.
Scripture is extremely literal but that is for God to show you, not man. Seek Him with all your heart and you will find Him and He will reveal His truth to you. In my experience the scriptures are just so darn literal that in our own understanding we can’t comprehend it. IMHO it is the most literal writing that will ever be.
My guess would be that the whole issue of the bible being literally true is simply an outgrowth of the Enlightenment.
Prior to that time, history and biography in Wesytern literature were always written to propound truths and it was pretty well understood by the audience that such moral truths were the purpose of the works. This is not to claim that no author ever bothered to try to get the facts correct, but even when the facts were correct, the purpose was never a simple recitation of facts. (There were journals and diaries where event facts were recorded, but any complex narrative was understood to provide a moral or a an explanation that was not slave to the facts on which it was based.)
With the Enlightenment, a new way of looking at information began to enter Western literature. As science developed as a discipline, the importance of presenting facts as immutable points of reference entered the literary world in the genres of history and biography, as well as natural science.
Once that theme was firmly entrenched in those disciplines, (not that such genres were free from manipulation, but the expectation that they would adhere to some understanding of facts became the normal presumption), then people began to look at other forms of literature to examine them for the same standards. At that point, two separate groups emerged: those who rejected works for not adhering to facts and those who began to insist that the works were factual, regardless of any contrary evidence. A third movement also arose, that simply looked on such genres as having been written in a different time with different expectations, figuring that those works should not be judged by standards not present when they were written.
The conflicts between the adherents of the first two groups came to a head in the 19th centure, with declarations by various groups that formally declared the literal truth of the bible, culminating in the declarations in the early 20th century of the Fundamentalists.
There would not be a declaration of the literal truth of the bible in the bible, (regardless which verses are cherry picked to support the notion), because the authors and audiences of the works in the bible would not have considered that a reasonable attitude to even care about.
How do books generally indicate they should be taken literally?
Wow. I found your post very enlightening.
Seriously, I had never thought of this, and it seems reasonable.
If it’s not too much of a hijack, could I add a couple of questions?
I’m wondering if those who belief the bible is literally true feel that there are also greater truths in what is included? I think you must, right? For example, take the story of Abraham and Isaac, and God telling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. I’m assuming literalists think the story is literally true, but why do you think God wanted that story in the bible? Do you think that it is a lesson to us, in order to teach us something along the lines of “You need to be willing to do whatever God says, no matter what” or “sometimes children die and that’s because God wills it” or some other, more hidden lesson?
And, if so, does being focused on proving or arguing about the literal truth of something in the bible ever rob anyone of the deeper lesson? To illustrate what I’m asking:
It seems to me that, if someone claimed that a fable such as the Tortoise and the Hare was literally true, and spent time arguing about what kind of tortoise it was, what kind of hare, whether they were speaking English to arrange their race or communicating in some animal language, etc. would mebbe miss the entire point of the fable (to teach that “slow and steady wins the race” or whatever).
Please understand I am not trying to belittle scripture with my example. I am just trying to illustrate a point. My apologies if anyone is offended by this.
My second question is, would it seem possible that, if there is a God, and God wanted the bible written/translated exactly as it is, including whatever contradictions or non-literal bits or inaccuracies might be in there, that there might be a reason for it? Like, mebbe God wants these things in the bible so that we may know that it is not to be taken literally?
Please tell me if these things are better addressed in a separate thread.
Actually, that set of statements should begin with “In my opinion, Scripture…”
The issue I have with literalism (and with modern debunkery too) is that nobody who is not trained in history, scholarly Biblical exegesis, anthropology, or a few related fields ever addresses the contents as what they were to the writers and readers. There was literally no such thing as the writing of objective history in Biblical times – if you took the time and effort to write out past events for the edification of others, it literally was for the edification of others, and you made sure they drew the proper moral lesson from it. Objective biography did not exist; lives of people were written to draw lessons from their lives in how or how not to live. And the ancients believed in the value of story – tales told, whether of fictional people, real people, or legendary herose, with no real effort to match them to fact but rather with the intent of conveying a message. Many of these were epi- or toponymic n nature; others were didactic.
Matthew and John were not writing objective biography of Jesus – they were portraying him with specific intents in mind. One would think that the didactic intent of Jonah as fable would be evident, and the rather more intricate effort to debunk the “God rewards righteousness with riches” theology of Old Testament times using the ancient legend of Job as frame story for some of the best Hebrew poetry, ought to be clear. Further, extracting prooftext verses from the complex explication of Paul’s theology in Romans completly misses the point more often than not.
Would it even mean anything for the bible to tell you that it is to be taken literally? If you don’t take the bible literally, and you encounter the passage where it says that you should, you’d be under no obligation, not taking that passage literally after all; only if you took the bible literal would it telling you to take it literal actually be compelling in any way, however, then it would hardly be necessary.
No, it does make a difference whether the book asserts it’s supposed to be taken literally or not. It does make a difference whether a book is subtitled “An accurate history” or “a compliation of fairy tales”.
Now, whether the book is accurate or true, that cannot be learned from statements within it. But that’s a slightly different thing.
Part of the reason God gave His Word to us is to expand our mind. In human thinking, which is based on the teachings of other humans you get the above. God has shown me that human teachings are very flawed and opposite the truth. I like to say that man has facts, but God has truths. Those stories are true as stated, Mathew and John, along with Luke and Mark portrayed totally accurate depictions of Lord Jesus, though in man’s (very limited) understanding there are contradictions, the truth is stated exactly as they saw it. The truth is that Johan did spend 3 days inside another being, entering Sheol for that time.
The problem is we (man) don’t understand what truth is, we understand what a fact is as something that supposedly any man can reproduce consistently, which doesn’t prove anything logically, but absolute truth takes faith to accept and that comes from God not man.
[Heinlein geek]I didn’t know the whale was named Eunice! 
[/Heinlein geek]
Maybe I’m reading it wrong, but it doesn’t seem to be relevant to the discussion at hand to me. In my eyes, that verse merely says “don’t you edit a word of my mushroom dream, you peasants, or a pox on you !”, but whether said words are supposed to be taken as (heh) gospel or allegory isn’t adressed one way or the other. IOW, it’s just an early copyright blurb 
(Emphasis added.) Aren’t you basically admitting that there is no scriptural support for a literal interpretation? For there to be scriptural support, you need to quote chapter and verse that literally says that a literal interpretation is the correct one. It looks to me like you’re trying to provide a non-scriptural defense of a literal interpretation. (And there’s nothing inherently wrong with not having scriptural support–scriptures are not the entirety of Christianity.)
I would also point out that we’re not talking about the truth of Bible. The topic of this thread is about how to interpret it. And note that belief in the absolute truth of the Bible does not require one to use a literal interpretation of it. Allegory and parables can convey truth just as well as a literal newspaper-style story.
Well, I was being facetious, for the most part. But it all depends so much on context and preconceived notions as to be virtually inextricable – for instance, if you get an email titled ‘25 amazing facts!!!’, and you are one of those internet users with half a brain (aka the lucky 5%), you’ll probably be more inclined to believe that what you have in hands here is a collection of 25 amazing pieces of bullshit.
But, in any case, you’re right, asking whether or not the bible claims is own infallible truth is different from asking whether or not one should be influenced by either the presence of absence of such a claim, which was what my post addressed.
Well, obviously, em, er… I don’t know. That’s an excellent question.
Is there anything in the sacred texts of other religions that hints at the fact that this is the literal word of their god or just someone’s opinion?
The Book of Revelations is a good example of a book that tells you point blank that it was dictated by God. The author identifies himself and proceeds to tell how he heard God command him to write what he was going to see.
That’s a great and solid argument AGAINST literal interpretation. You are saying that there is a truth to be learned from scripture and that it is a human failure to get hung up on the details and factual inconsistencies.
Funny. And to the point, too. It says that that is how the story must be told but not that that is how the story must be read.
Thank you. Yes. I don’t care to dispute the veracity of the message of scripture but only if it is to be taken literally as a recount of historical facts that happened exactly as told. As you point out, the author could have chosen parables and images to convey his message.
Jesus himself chooses that method often. He never claims there was a farmer who let seed drop in rocky terrain, among weeds and fertile ground. He just wants you to have that image in your head so you can see what he wants you to see. That an author wants you to see two naked first humans in a garden talking to a snake so you understand his message is not such a long stretch in view of that.