In my previous article I focused on a common hermeneutical principle among fundamentalists. I called it the “literal when possible principle” (henceforth LPP) and I noted an example from it in the writings of John Walvoord, one of the preeminent fundamentalist scholars of the twentieth century. I then presented four arguments against it. Unfortunately a few readers at the Christian Post ignored the four arguments and instead posted snarky attacks against my person. But not all was lost. A few commenters actually were seeking to understand the arguments. One of them was “Abhodim” who commented as follows:
“What method would you prescribe in the interpretation of the Scriptures that you you deem justifiable? Point blank, what is your hermeneutic principle, stated as positively as you can. In my experience, if I were to try to understand the message from, say, my momma’s latest letter, the tendency is to approach the letter in literal mode unless momma states something out of the norm of literal. Unless she happens to be Elizabeth Barrett Browning, then all bets off. Still, the literal remains the primary mode of understanding until something metaphorical or symbolic is established.”
I appreciate Abhodim’s comments for the following reasons. First, they don’t contain any insults (unlike many of the comments from readers at the “Christian” Post); Second, they don’t mindlessly quote scriptures warning against “false teachers” as a sort of trump card; Third, they focus the issues to a fine laser point. In my response I will use male pronouns when referring to Abhodim since, like virtually all the commenters at CP, Abhodim chooses to remain anonymous leaving me in the dark as to gender. (I also wisely decided not to use female pronouns as the default so as not to anger the more patriarchal readers.)
Based on what Abhodim writes in his comment coupled with his assumption that these comments are relevant to the defense of LPP, he must believe the following:
(1) Abhodim’s momma’s letter consists primarily of literal expression with only the occasional divergence into idiomatic expression.
(2) Every statement in Abhodim’s momma’s letter should be interpreted literally if at all possible.
(3) The analogy of reading a letter written by one’s momma in the early 21st century is analogous to reading the Bible such that the same hermeneutical principles which are operative in one would be operative in the other.
Are these defensible assumptions? Let’s consider each of them in turn. Of course, we don’t have Abhodim’s momma’s letter here. So what we will do instead is consider some excerpts from a typical letter written by a momma to her kin whilst assuming, for the sake of argument, that it is a letter written by Abhodim’s momma.
(1) Abhodim’s momma’s letter consists primarily of literal expression with only the occasional divergence into idiomatic expression.
Is this correct? No, this is not true of the typical letter written by a momma. That was my first point in the original article: language does not function with a “literal as default” setting. This is a false and wildly outdated view of language which, as I observed, was already getting tired before the Eiffel Tower had worn off its first coat of paint. (That actually is hyperbolic. The Eiffel Tower was approximately on its fourth coat of paint by the time this view was being widely abandoned, but you get the point.)
The fact is that you don’t need to be “Elizabeth Barrett Browning” to interweave literary tropes seamlessly into your written or spoken communication. Consider this excerpt from the imaginary letter:
“Well Abhodim, my bones ache a fair bit. I’m so tired I could sleep for a week. And the rain isn’t helping. It rained enough this last week to float Noah’s Ark. I saw Pastor Brown yesterday and he said he’ll never forget the brownies you baked for the church picnic last year. They were from heaven!”
In that brief excerpt there are at least five idiomatic expressions. Bones do not literally ache, momma could not literally sleep for a week, there was not literally enough rain to float Noah’s Ark, Pastor Brown will not literally fail to forget the brownies (or at least he can’t guarantee it) and as good as they were they were not literally from heaven. So straight out of the gate the LPP is showing itself to be irrelevant since the literal and non-literal oscillate in our written and spoken expression with a dizzying complexity. (However, they don’t literally oscillate and it isn’t literally dizzying.)
(2) Every statement in Abhodim’s momma’s letter should be interpreted literally if at all possible.
The first point merely sidelines or marginalizes LPP, but it doesn’t outright falsify it. This second point does. Consider the following two sentences from the letter:
“Oh, and your brother Ricky Bobby beat the Smith boy to a pulp outside Smoky Joes. I was so angry I coulda killed him.”
According to LPP we should interpret these sentences literally if at all possible. Is it possible that Ricky Bobby beat the Smith boy so badly that he was literally pulpified? Yes, that is possible. And is it possible that momma could have been so angry that she could have killed her son? That too is possible. But it is quite obvious that the literal reading is not the natural reading because “beat to a pulp” can also be interpreted as a hyperbolic (that is, non-literal) expression. Of course the same applies for momma’s claim that she could have killed her son.
So we do not follow LPP in written or spoken communication for these two reasons: Language is a complex interweaving of literal and non-literal expression which renders LPP useless; and the best (that is, natural) interpretation of many statements or expressions is non-literal, even when a literal interpretation is possible.
(3) The analogy of reading a letter written by one’s momma in the early 21st century is analogous to reading the Bible such that the same hermeneutical principles which are operative in one would be operative in the other.
We now turn to the third assumption. Is it correct that Abhodim’s analogy of reading a letter is relevant to the Bible? In one sense this question is otiose since I have already established that LPP is false with respect to the letter reading case. Nonetheless, the assumption that the analogy is relevant is important to critique because it reveals the flat-footed way that many Christian conservatives read the Bible. In other words, they assume that reading the entire Bible is as straightforward as reading a letter.
But this is false. Let’s begin with the closest biblical analogue for momma’s letter, the New Testament epistles. Even there the analogy is a stretch. An epistle from the ancient Mediterranean basin and momma’s letter are not simply two tokens of the universal type “letter”. While there are similarities — e.g. a formal opening, a body of the letter and a conclusion — there are also striking differences. The picture is complicated additionally since the ancient epistles reflect multiple hermeneutical divergences from the typical twenty-first century letter writer. For example, they reflect unique ways of interpreting the Old Testament and they cite many examples of first century hymnic or credal forms (e.g. Col. 1:15-20; Phil. 2:5-11; 1 Cor. 15:3-5). And never mind the fact that some of Paul’s sentences are paragraph length. (Did you ever try reading Ephesians 1 in the Greek?)
Needless to say, the analogy completely breaks down (but it doesn’t literally break down) when we remember that scripture contains a complex range of genres from the ancient world. Do we interpret the Psalms, a sort of ancient hymnal or liturgical book, literally when possible? Do we do so for the prophetic warnings of the prophets? What about apocalyptic? Parables? Wisdom proverbs? In each of these cases it makes absolutely no sense to interpret the texts in question literally when possible.
So LPP is false and following it leads to all sorts of problems. But then where do we go from here? Ths is how Abhodim put the question: “Point blank, what is your hermeneutic principle, stated as positively as you can.” It is this: your default setting is not the “literal interpretation” but rather the “natural interpretation”. And don’t assume that the natural interpretation is whatever seems natural to you as a denizen of the 21st century reading your favorite English translation. Yes, reading the Bible takes some effort to learn the various genres. But it is worth the investment.
Finally, I cannot help but quote another commenter who responded to my original article by citing a warning from 2 Peter:
2 Peter 2:1-3 / 2 Peter 2 The Rise of False Prophets 1 But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. 2 Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; 3 and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
I take it that this individual was intending to suggest that I am a “false teacher”. This is typical of the worst use of the Bible, a mindless proof-texting to shut up one’s opponents. How ironic that it is done in the context of my efforts to help Christian conservatives read the Bible with more nuance and faithfulness.
Even so, the text is appropriate. There are many false teachers out there. Many of them trample and marginalize the Bible’s authority with a blind, unthinking flat-footed reading that assumes whatever strikes them as a sensible, natural, literal reading must be exactly what was in the mind of the writers of scripture. And they assume that the biblical writers must have shared their social, nationalist, and political sentiments. With these assumptions they colonize the biblical text and domesticate it for their own purposes.
