I wasn’t making a claim regarding the Bible’s origins. Instead, I was referring to exactly that which you point out with your Jonah example: how could one recognize that that story can be symbolic if one has never been taught to read stories allegorically? That’s the overlap between reading the Bible and secular texts: the ability to look at a narrative for its multiple possible interpretations instead of the most superficial one.

It’s troubling to me that so many within the evangelical movement–many that I’ve encountered, anyway–discourage looking into scripture more deeply–and by “deeply,” I mean engaging the ambiguity/multiple interpretations of some passages–apparently because ambiguity or complexity=weakness. Never got that.

In some ways, it’s an impossible task. We cannot escape the fact that we are 21st century English-speaking Americans. Since we cannot go back in time and get into the heads of the original authors/readers, we will always in some way impose our methods on the text.

At the same time, I don’t think we are completely ignorant of the literary techniques of ancient authors. Where there is extra-biblical literature produced by the same or similar communities, the task is a bit easier.

But that’s the way all communication works. Having never met you face-to-face, I am not familiar with your beliefs, dialect, word choice, etc. In some ways, I will read your posts as if I had written them myself. At the same time, I can take the pieces that I do have (you are an English professor, you live in Georgia, you blog, etc.) and try to put the puzzle together. I still might misunderstand you, but we can communicate meaningfully. Even with my wife, whom I do know and see every day, I read into her speech what I would mean by certain words. But the more I know a person and their way of communicating, the better chance I have of understanding their intent.

Back to biblical interpretation, I will give you a gross example of what I think we shouldn’t do. Many 20th century biblical scholars rejected miracle stories a priori because of a modernist belief that miracles can’t and don’t happen. In my opinion that is imposing an alien worldview on the text. The ancients believed that miracles can and did happen. We need to read with minds open to the fact that perhaps Jesus did actually walk on water and raise from the dead. In the end, we still might dismiss those things as rubbish, but we need to be careful not to do so a priori because of our own belief set.

But in other instances the issue is more complex. Take the story of Jonah, for instance. Did the author of Jonah intend the original recipients to believe that Jonah was actually swallowed by a fish, or was it understood that the story as a literary fiction illustrating God’s sovereignty over both Israel and the Gentiles? I don’t know.

There is a never-ending dialogue in biblical interpretation about how the ancients communicated and how we can read their communication as they intended. Again, the Bible is God’s book, but what kind of book is it?

In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Bible is a book in a different category. Most Christians believe that God himself had a role in writing it in a way unlike any other work of literature. Christians differ in opinion as to what that role was/is in producing the Bible, but most believe that the Bible is the “Word of God” in a sense that other religious documents are not. Certainly this a priori assumption is open to criticism, but it is one of those things that has been handed down from generation to generation within the tribe.

I would argue that the Bible should be read on its own terms and that no foreign method should be imposed on it. I think the way that the spiritual community has revered the Bible throughout time testifies to the fact that it is intended to be read as “sacred literature.” If we want to be fair to the text, this affects the way we read/interpret it.

At the same time, I would say that most American evangelicals do not appreciate the literary character of the Bible. Even if the Bible is literature in a category of its own, that does not mean that it is free from the literary techniques of the ages in which it was written. Understanding these techniques can help you understand the message of the Scriptures. Sadly, many pastors/youth pastors do indeed teach that any reading of the Scriptures beyond the superficial is inherently dangerous to one’s faith. This relates to the deeper issue that the evangelical community is largely anti-intellectual. (That is not true across the board, of course, but I think it is a fair assessment of many.)

ngilmour,

I think you hit the nail on the head with regard to one of the major issues in evangelical hermeneutics–”The Bible is God’s book, but what kind of book is it?”

It sounds to me like these students–some of them, at least–have been told that the Bible occupies a different space on the shelf, to be read with both eyebrows raised in awe, not with one cocked in contemplation.

How is what one does in a Bible study class any different? Certainly, the perspective and language one uses differs, but does the actual method of analysis?