There have been one or two literalists hanging around EvC lately who quite unequivocally state that if we cannot take the biblical texts at face value then we cannot trust anything that is in it.
Having studied the Bible, and in particular the Old Testament, for a lot of years, I feel that anyone taking a literal approach to the text is really missing out on so much. This one dimensional view means that one misses out on some wonderful allegories, some very funny puns, and other literary devices that make the Bible a very complex collection of ancient texts.
Readers of the Bible who fail to notice the literary devices used by many of its authors really are doing its authors a disservice as they are failing to discover the deeper meanings of many of the texts.
We can also learn a lot about the faith, politics, sociology, and the psychology of its authors by having a more open approach to the Bible. As much of the history in the Bible, taken at face value, has been disproved, perhaps we can learn a lot about its authors by asking ourselves why so much of the history has been either exaggerated, or simply just made up.
Perhaps a good example from the Bible that includes a real mix of the areas I have pointed out is the Book of Jonah, and if we have a quick look at some of the verses in that book maybe we can conclude that taking the text at face value is insulting the book's authors.
Firstly, if we look at the alleged historical events in the book we can only conclude that most, maybe even all of them, are historically inaccurate. If we look at some of these, in no particular order, we can see that the authors were not intent on recording an accurate version of Jonah's adventures.
To begin with, there are at least 4 major problems regarding the City of Nineveh.
1. There was no such person as "The King of Nineveh", Nineveh was not a kingdom.
2. There is no evidence whatsoever of a mass conversion by all of its inhabitants to Yahwism.
3. The size of the city is greatly exaggerated. The Bible claims that it would take three days to go from one side of Nineveh to the other side, but archaeological evidence informs us that the city's entire circumference is just less than 8 miles.
4. The population of Nineveh is hinted at when we are told that there was 120 000 children in the city, which would mean when we added adults we could have over half a million people living there, a figure that is clearly unrealistic.
We then have the problems of the miraculous.
We have to accept that a man could live unscathed for three days inside the belly of a "great fish" (the author of Matthew has Jesus wrongly identify the creature as a whale), that a raging storm halted when Jonah was thrown overboard, the miraculous growth of a plant, and the plant-killing worm.
There is also much in the Book of Jonah that is simply not plausible. We are asked to accept that a stranger just walked into Nineveh and everyone, including the king, simply said "okay, we will convert to your faith", this doesn't sound at all reasonable. Was Jonah multilingual, or did he have a translator with him to discuss his faith with the Ninevites? Is it reasonable to accept that while inside the fish this man had the calmness to compose a psalm to God?
With all these clues to suggest that the authors of the Book of Jonah were not recording an historical event at all, this should encourage us to look at other possibilities. Personally, I think the best way to look at the book is as an allegorical text.
The authors' decision to call the hero 'Jonah' is quite clever, and a very strong clue that we should not take the text at face value. The name Jonah means 'dove', and in several places in the Bible the dove is symbolic of Israel.
Hosea 11:11
They will come trembling
like birds from Egypt,
like doves from Assyria.
I will settle them in their homes,"
declares the LORD.
Psalm 74:19
Do not hand over the life of your dove to wild beasts;
do not forget the lives of your afflicted people forever.
So, if we conclude that when the authors refer to 'Jonah' they are actually referring to Israel, and this allegory carries on strongly throughout the entire book. Jonah's reluctance to preach to the Gentiles mirrors perfectly the nation of Israel's refusal to do the same. Throughout the entire Old Testament we are constantly reminded that it is Israel who is God's chosen one, Israel has a unique relationship with Yahweh, and the OT writers are very keen to remind us of that.
The great fish that swallowed Jonah doesn't need to be a sea creature or any other creature at all, Jonah's captivity inside the fish is allegorical to Israel's exile in Babylon.
I don't want to make the OP too long, and these ideas can be expanded on throughout the discussion.
So, even this very superficial look at the Book of Jonah informs us that the inaccurate historical information, the miraculous, and implausible scenarios should urge us to look at the text in as many different ways as we can. I am not claiming that the book was definitely written as allegory, we will never know for sure what the intention of its authors were (the book may equally be written as a parable), but taking it as allegory certainly solves a lot of problems.
To me, looking at all the Biblical texts in as many different ways as we can gives us more of a chance of discovering the intentions of its authors. Taking the one dimensional literalist approach means that these people are disregarding the literary skills of the authors, and are missing out on how wonderful the Old Testament texts really are.
Therefore, are people who take a literalist approach to the biblical texts insulting its authors?
Bible study, what does the Bible really mean, please Admin.
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