Literally Ridiculous
As I sit here at university watching the minutes on the clock tick by (slowly), waiting for my final exam for Artificial Intelligence, I find my mind wandering, quite naturally, to Biblical interpretation (as if that's supposed to be ironic: truth is, I always think about Biblical interpretation).
Once again, yesterday I found myself listening to a preacher who demanded that we must interpret the Bible absolutely literally whenever it made sense to, otherwise we could end up in error. I've heard many people say this, and they always cite Origen as their example of Biblical Interpretest gone bad. This man yesterday was no exception. If any of you don't know who Origen was, I won't delve into the details of his life right now, suffice it to say, he was one of the most brilliant men ever to live, and wrote more than most people read in their entire lives. He lived from 184 - 234 and was an example of one of those men given tremendous insight, with no peers around him to keep him from trailing off in error. He eventually taught that everyone, including the demons themselves will be saved, among other blatent errors. Interestingly, he came up with this idea in order to combat Gnostic teachings, but it's never a good idea to fight error with error. As such, his teachings were condemned in 553 at the fifth ecumenical council.
Anyway, why is Origen so championed as a negative example for those who would have as their motto of Biblical interpretation "If the plain sense makes perfect sense, seek no other sense."? It is because Origen made radical use of what's called the allegorical interpretation of the text. During that time, a popular idea was to skip over the literal sense of a passage and have it symbolize an important Christian truth. The problem literalists have with this idea is that once you move over into the allegorical camp you can have the scriptures mean anything you want! This is usually brought up when talking about the Millenium of Revelation 20.
To keep ourselves from error, they say, is to ignore the desire to hunt for deep meanings in the text and stop with the literal words themselves. If the passage says Israel, it means Israel - not the church! If a passage says the glory of the Lord will fill the temple - it means the glory of the Lord will fill a physical building. Once we allow it mean something else, we have already fallen over the cliff.
I have listened to these preachers and have come to the conclusion that they are completely wrong. The allegorical method of interpretation brings out deep meanings in the text that God has given to us to find. I am not satisfied with physical lions and lambs laying down together, or people living to be to extraordinary ages before they die, or a physical temple on earth where animal sacrifices will be offered while Jesus Christ himself sits on a literal throne of David. I am not satisfied that in the Millenium I will be on earth, ruling with Christ in a resurrection body while the earth is inhabited with non-christians who are still living in unresurrected bodies. I am not satisfied with a promise of land to the political nation of Israel. These passages all have something deep and meaningful to relate to all Christians everywhere - and we do not need to be ashamed to read the text in that manner. It doesn't hurt that both Paul and Christ Himself use the passages of the Old Testament in an allegorical way.
The trouble with all this, however, how do you keep yourself from error? I think the reason that we've got people crying out for only literal interpretations is a direct result from the protestant reformation. The trouble with the reformation was that the reformers, in trying to get rid of Roman Catholic practices they believed were evil, went on to get rid of lots of Roman Catholic practices that were good! One of the things they put to death was the idea that tradition has no place in the Christian Church. It is only the Bible, and the Bible alone, that is the source of all our knowledge. We cannot, and will not, use anything else.
This radical stance necessitates the literalist approach, because once you no longer have any authority to compare your interpretation to, in order keep on the straight and narrow, you must not allow any subjective material to enter into the fold. They say we cannot dig deep into the text for allegorical meanings because there's nothing to compare it with to see if it's correct! Well, that's true. Unless, of course, you recognized the traditions of the Church for the last two thousand years. We've eliminated tradition, but if we were to bring it back, our lives would be enriched with deep insight into the
scriptures. That is my prayer for this generation - that we would re-discover the traditions of our fathers in the faith - and I'm not talking about the reformation. I'm talking about the seven ecumenical councils - I'm talking about spiritual giants like Athanasius, John Chrysostem, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nanzianzus, Justin Martyr, Ignatius, Polycarp, etc. I don't know how many know these names, but I would gather not many. We ignore them today because they aren't in the Bible, and are just part of the past, and have no bearing on us today.
Have we not forgotten that those aforementioned men (and women), comprise the great cloud of witnesses that surrounds us. We ignore them to our peril.
Once again, yesterday I found myself listening to a preacher who demanded that we must interpret the Bible absolutely literally whenever it made sense to, otherwise we could end up in error. I've heard many people say this, and they always cite Origen as their example of Biblical Interpretest gone bad. This man yesterday was no exception. If any of you don't know who Origen was, I won't delve into the details of his life right now, suffice it to say, he was one of the most brilliant men ever to live, and wrote more than most people read in their entire lives. He lived from 184 - 234 and was an example of one of those men given tremendous insight, with no peers around him to keep him from trailing off in error. He eventually taught that everyone, including the demons themselves will be saved, among other blatent errors. Interestingly, he came up with this idea in order to combat Gnostic teachings, but it's never a good idea to fight error with error. As such, his teachings were condemned in 553 at the fifth ecumenical council.
Anyway, why is Origen so championed as a negative example for those who would have as their motto of Biblical interpretation "If the plain sense makes perfect sense, seek no other sense."? It is because Origen made radical use of what's called the allegorical interpretation of the text. During that time, a popular idea was to skip over the literal sense of a passage and have it symbolize an important Christian truth. The problem literalists have with this idea is that once you move over into the allegorical camp you can have the scriptures mean anything you want! This is usually brought up when talking about the Millenium of Revelation 20.
To keep ourselves from error, they say, is to ignore the desire to hunt for deep meanings in the text and stop with the literal words themselves. If the passage says Israel, it means Israel - not the church! If a passage says the glory of the Lord will fill the temple - it means the glory of the Lord will fill a physical building. Once we allow it mean something else, we have already fallen over the cliff.
I have listened to these preachers and have come to the conclusion that they are completely wrong. The allegorical method of interpretation brings out deep meanings in the text that God has given to us to find. I am not satisfied with physical lions and lambs laying down together, or people living to be to extraordinary ages before they die, or a physical temple on earth where animal sacrifices will be offered while Jesus Christ himself sits on a literal throne of David. I am not satisfied that in the Millenium I will be on earth, ruling with Christ in a resurrection body while the earth is inhabited with non-christians who are still living in unresurrected bodies. I am not satisfied with a promise of land to the political nation of Israel. These passages all have something deep and meaningful to relate to all Christians everywhere - and we do not need to be ashamed to read the text in that manner. It doesn't hurt that both Paul and Christ Himself use the passages of the Old Testament in an allegorical way.
The trouble with all this, however, how do you keep yourself from error? I think the reason that we've got people crying out for only literal interpretations is a direct result from the protestant reformation. The trouble with the reformation was that the reformers, in trying to get rid of Roman Catholic practices they believed were evil, went on to get rid of lots of Roman Catholic practices that were good! One of the things they put to death was the idea that tradition has no place in the Christian Church. It is only the Bible, and the Bible alone, that is the source of all our knowledge. We cannot, and will not, use anything else.
This radical stance necessitates the literalist approach, because once you no longer have any authority to compare your interpretation to, in order keep on the straight and narrow, you must not allow any subjective material to enter into the fold. They say we cannot dig deep into the text for allegorical meanings because there's nothing to compare it with to see if it's correct! Well, that's true. Unless, of course, you recognized the traditions of the Church for the last two thousand years. We've eliminated tradition, but if we were to bring it back, our lives would be enriched with deep insight into the scriptures. That is my prayer for this generation - that we would re-discover the traditions of our fathers in the faith - and I'm not talking about the reformation. I'm talking about the seven ecumenical councils - I'm talking about spiritual giants like Athanasius, John Chrysostem, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nanzianzus, Justin Martyr, Ignatius, Polycarp, etc. I don't know how many know these names, but I would gather not many. We ignore them today because they aren't in the Bible, and are just part of the past, and have no bearing on us today.
Have we not forgotten that those aforementioned men (and women), comprise the great cloud of witnesses that surrounds us. We ignore them to our peril.