When you read something like say..... Genesis; is it literal, figurative, metaphorical, other?
Generally, I think the best understanding of any passage can be reached by finding out what can be known about how it was understood by the original readers. The ultimate meaning and importance of a passage might be understood now as it was in ancient times, but meaning can be missed if we don’t understand how it is being expressed. I think there are different layers to that, e.g as a straightforward example, in David’s time the heart was thought of as the centre of thought within the body, with the roles of other organs and viscera in thinking maybe being taken more literally also, so whereas a modern reading might take passages like psalm 4:4 ‘...meditate in your heart’ as figurative, a contemporary reader would have understood this as a literal statement. More broadly, there are differences in thinking that affect whole cultures - our understanding in the West (broadly speaking) of biblical teaching is influenced by Western Philosophy, an influence that is simply unavoidable as our cultures are permeated by ways of thinking and perceiving the world that are very different from those of OT and NT times, influenced as they were by Eastern Philosophy (and other cultural norms/paradigms etc). Language also plays an important role in our conception of the world, e.g. our more abstract modern language can lead to more abstract and disconnected thinking, linking ideas up more indirectly perhaps, more rarefied thinking for want of another way of putting it, whereas the more concrete expression of ancient Hebrew rooted the scriptures more viscerally in everyday life and experience (see Thorleif Boman’s ‘Hebrew thought compared with Greek’ for a thorough exploration of this).
It’s important to understand, I think, that the bible wasn’t written in a vacuum; God worked through men and women who were influenced by their time and culture, as everyone is. God is able to and does use this, as in Paul’s sentiment in Acts 17:26-27 he works with us where we are. Whatever the process of ‘inspiration’ is and how it is to be understood that God communicates his message, it certainly isn’t as basic as God just zapping it directly into the minds of unthinking agents. Taking your example of Genesis the best argument I’ve come across for how the creation narrative should be understood is in John H Walton’s ‘The lost world of Genesis One’. Using a technical examination of the language used and a broad review of surviving literature and religious writings from roughly the same period, Walton argues that the understanding of the creation narrative to the original audience would have differed fundamentally to ours; in the modern world, when we think of ‘creation’ we assume material creation, basically, ‘what is all this stuff, where did it come from, how does it work’ etc. At the time of writing of the narrative, the thinking was more along the lines of ‘who gave order to everything, who is in charge, what roles do we have in it’. Read in a direct, word for word translation, as in the online ‘mechanical translation’, the actual creation of matter is not in the text, just the ordering of it -
In the origin Elohiym shaped the skies and the land,
and the land had existed in confusion and was unfilled, and darkness was upon the face of the deep water and the wind of Elohiym was fluttering upon the face of the waters
And so on. Taken literally then, the original meaning of the text was not that God created all things in 6 days (although debate of whether a literal series of 24hr days is what is meant from any creation perspective is nothing new, e.g. Maimonides and Augustine), but that it was God who provided order, that mankind and animals have different roles, among other things. The 7 days are a device, a way of assigning progression and relative importance. It’s ironic perhaps that it may be that the kind of YEC ideas that are still popular are essentially attempts to fit the creation narrative into a modern mindset, missing in the process what its actual meaning may be. And it’s the meaning that matters - whether a passage is taken to be literal, figurative or whatever what remains important is the meaning of the passage, and that can be missed if we insist on taking everything ‘literally’ - i.e simply reading the text and taking it to mean what we think, interpreted according to our modern, Western mindset.
Next question.... If it's not literal, did you happen to think why you've concluded it is not actually literal?
As above, digging into how things may have been understood at the time of writing has influenced my thinking about how a 21st C person’s ‘literal’ understanding may differ from that of a person living centuries or milenia ago. The text can be trusted to convey meaning - our personal interpretations of that meaning, not so much.
I'm not trying to straw man you. I'm actually curious. Meaning, If you were stranded on a remote island, and only ever had the Bible as your guide for truth, would many of the same concepts, in which you now perceive as contextual or metaphoric, be as such with no other outside knowledge?
I don’t know - I think that’s a question of volition. If all I had was the bible and no prior knowledge of it then I certainly
could figure out what I needed to know, as in the essential knowledge, but it would depend on having the will to do that I think, which I might not have if I didn’t already have at least some knowledge of the bible. Outside knowledge certainly helps - my parents were atheists, and the first time I picked up a bible I couldn’t make any sense of it, it took some directed study to really start developing any understanding. I don’t think an academic understanding of the bible is essential for salvation by any means, but it does make study of the scriptures more rewarding.
Furthermore, how might you reconcile the topics or subjects in which you may not agree with, if you happen to?
I can’t think of anything specific. Understanding Jesus is a big general one though, and I’ve found that finding out more about the times he lived in on the earth has helped me to understand him better. Did you have any particular issues in mind?
According to scripture, which position is correct (gay okay or gay not okay, female head pastors okay or female head pastors not okay)? You see my point? If some can spin, even the most seemingly axiomatic dictates from the Bible, whom was apparently inspired by an all perfect creator, where does that leave us, when interpreting 'harder' stuff, like how to get to heaven, verses not heaven?
