I was intrigued by this post in another thread (re-posted here with permission).
What are we to do with "literal" biblical interpretation? Does one's perception of what is "literal" change over time (e.g. reading scripture as allegory, or along a continuum instead) when studying biblical text; or does the distinction between literal and allegory become more clear with study? How doe we discern what is "far less" (or "far more") literal?
One must rely heavily on "context" but by that I mean far more than just a few verses before or after the passage in question.
I want you to sit down and imagine a society far different from ours. How different? Perhaps more different than most of us can even imagine.
It is a society without mass media. There is no radio, no television, no telephones, no cell phones, no telegraph, not even a printing press. Even if the printing press existed, it would be of little worth since the great majority of people were illiterate. Only the rulers, court officials, military officers, the rich, the merchants and the priests but very very few of the common people could read or write. Most news or information had to be transmitted orally person to person.
To send a message over a distance a scribe might be employed to write it and another to read it upon arrival. It would have had to be carried by a person on foot, or horseback, or camelback or by ship at sea. All of these were by no means certain. A message from Jerusalem to Rome might take weeks even months to arrive if at all.
What about the people themselves? As mentioned earlier, most were illiterate. This is not surprising for a society in which most lived a hand to mouth existence. Mere survival was of utmost importance. Few people traveled any more than a few dozen kilometers from their native town. Few people were ever exposed to thoughts from anyone more distant than that.
Is it possible to even translate these conditions into the present day? Imagine, if you will, trying to describe an event that happened in the 1960's, say, the assassination of President Kennedy. There are no videotapes to view, no audio tapes, and not even any photographs. There might be written accounts but 95% of the population are illiterate. The story is passed down orally from person to person. Even in a society where oral transmission is valued and respected, the chance of getting the story straight is almost nil. This is the situation the author of the Gospel of Mark (whoever he was) was in. Remember we are only looking at 40 years. Add another 20 to 30 years and we have the situation of the author of the Gospel of John (whoever he was).
Can we trust these accounts? As literal history? No! As an embellished, allegorical, midrashic accounts? Yes! But we must always remind ourselves that they are embellished, allegorical and midrashic and deal with them as such. To grant these accounts more credence than that is to ignore the entire context of the times in which they were written. I mentioned haggadic midrash but very few Christians even know what that is or how important it is to an understanding of scripture.
Am I trashing scripture? By no means! I am respecting scripture by being realistic about it. Our Judeo-Christian scriptures were a very human endeavor in a certain context of history. When we lose sight of that context, then we also lose sight of the meaning and value of those scriptures. At this point, I have not even yet addressed the many other contexts of scripture ---- historical, scientific, economic, military, religious, literary and more! All of these contexts affect the interpretation of scripture. We ignore them at our peril.
