On the Importance of Taking the Bible Literally

The world created by biblical bloggers is chock full of interesting conversation. But it is too vast and variegated for any one person to keep up with. In the midst of other obligations, I sometimes find, almost by accident, a pearl of great price in the midst of much that is not. It is no different when I pick up and read a scientific journal in the field. The difference is that, in the case of more academic publications, the “much that is not” is often very long-winded and for that reason a more painful waste of time.

One example of a finely written post I just ran across is by N. T. Wrong entitled “James Barr advises Christians and Scholars to Take the Bible Literally.” He quotes Barr as follows:

In my opinion, it was a big mistake for many of the mainline religious organizations when they opposed the creationists by saying that the Bible should not be taken literally. This is not what the creationists do. It is, on the contrary, what the churches and other organisations should do: that is, to argue that, in this respect, the Bible’s figures should be taken literally, because it is when they are taken literally it becomes clear that they are not historically or scientifically true.”

The basic point that Barr was making is that correct interpretation of any text, biblical or otherwise, involves correct identification of the text’s genre. If a text’s genre is not history in the sense of chronicle, it is not taking the text literally to treat it as chronicle. It is, simply, a misreading. If a text’s genre is not science in the sense of the result of formulating a hypothesis and testing it via  empirical investigation, it is not taking the text literally to treat it as science of that kind. It is, rather, a misreading.

N. T. Wrong’s conclusions, which I will now quote, are exactly wrong from a Jewish or Christian point of view, but they are logical and deserve to be addressed:

James Barr set himself against those who would construct an artificial separation of theology and science/history, realising that both stand and fall together. The attempt to defend the bible as ‘theologically true’ but not a ‘textbook’ on history or science is, first, a false dichotomy, and, second, a division that its authors simply could not have conceived of. The bible is ‘theologically’ false because it is ‘historically’ / ’scientifically’ false - if these categories are understood emically (and so, non-exclusively). Disproof of the bible’s own conception of history or science (not our categories, mind you) is disproof of its own theology. Any denial of this stems from an imposition of modern categories which attempt a separation where none was thought possible.

I agree with Wrong’s line of reasoning. The Bible is a textbook of history and science, not just theology. All three subject matters hang precisely together for the biblical authors. But Wrong does not adequately address the following question: what kind of history and what kind of science do the biblical authors traffic in?

The Bible and Science

The question of science. Genesis 1 might be called a cosmological treatise. Traces of myth are detectable, but they have been thoroughly resignified. The result is absolutely striking: the refining power of the affirmation of a single, all-powerful God is so great that Genesis 1, which stands on that assumption, succeeds as does no other text, ancient or modern, in describing an orderly, intelligible, and positively splendid creation in which humankind is given awesome responsibilities by the author of the whole. It is not too much to say that the text has a scientific cast. The text also provides cogent grounds for pursuing science in every imaginable direction.

This is not to say that Gen 1 is science as the term is usually understood. It aims higher than that. It seeks to answer questions that are beyond the purview of science as conventionally defined.

Here Thomas Aquinas got it right: theology properly understood is the queen of the sciences. From its theological viewpoint, Gen 1 is able to address questions with a full reconnaissance of data, questions which other sciences can only address in a fragmentary way. The subject matter of theology after all is the principle and author of all that is, at the very least, theology concerns, as Einstein knew and believed, "Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of the world." According to Gen 1, a being capable of fiat created heaven and earth and everything in them, saw what he made, and declared it good. These affirmations entail the positive goodness of the material world, its sustainability by the same immense power which created it, and the very possibility of science.

But if Gen 1 is a cosmological treatise which plays off of and reworks motifs whose origin lies in the realm of myth rather than in history as these terms are usually understood, it is nonsensical and confusing to describe Gen 1 as “historical.”

On this view of things, Genesis 1 is a supremely scientific (=wissenschaftliche) text without having to be a historical (=historische) text.

The Bible and History

The question of history. In what sense are texts like Gen 11:27-12:3 and 15:1-6 history? The problem was definitively solved by Jacob Neusner in an essay that has not received the attention it deserves. Neusner does not discuss the sense in which biblical texts are historical, but the sense in which rabbinic texts that recount the dealings of Yohanan ben Zakkai with Vespasian are historical. But Neusner’s conclusions are no less valid for the epic literature of the Bible. He claims that the rabbinic accounts are historical, not in terms of chronicle, but in a structural anthropological sort of way, however unlike the structures Claude Levi-Strauss concerned himself with. That is, the accounts are historical in terms of social conflicts they describe, the stuff of history over entire epochs. The problematization of those conflicts and their resolution is what the rabbinic accounts – and the biblical accounts - are about.

It is not the case that epic texts like those in Genesis are a-historical. They are history of another kind, in which the history of an entire people is collapsed into the life of a single progenitor and viewed, as a historian like Toynbee might put it, as a series of challenges and responses in which God the creator and sustainer of all is the one who calls and challenges and elicits a response, good or bad.  It is no different in Homer's Iliad, except that a squabbling pantheon, not a single God, sustains and intervenes.

Epic literature contains more history, not less, than chronicle. Both the Bible and the Iliad explore the deep structure of history, personal and collective, in terms of a powerful metaphysic which continues to resonate with readers the world over. 

Bibliography

James Barr, “Pre-scientific Chronology: The Bible and the Origin of the World,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 143 (1999) 379-87 (online here); Jacob Neusner, “Beyond Historicism, After Structuralism: Story as History in Ancient Judaism” Henoch 3 (1981) 171-199 [ = The 1980 Harry Sindel Memorial Lecture (Bowdoin College, Brunswick Maine, 1980], reprinted in Neusner on Judaism: History (Contemporary Thinkers on Religion: Collected Works: London: Ashgate, 2004) 242-266 (viewable in large part online here via Google books).

Comments

[Jonathan Bartlett]

"It is not the case that epic texts like those in Genesis are a-historical. They are history of another kind, in which the history of an entire people is collapsed into the life of a single progenitor"

What features distinguish this sort of history from a history in which such happenings are actually occurring in the life of a single progenitor?

[N. T. Wrong]

I think we might agree about the false (yet very popular in scholarly circles) dichotomy of theology versus history in Genesis 1.

Yet I don't agree with your replacement dichotomy of cosmology versus history (which has some analogy to the modern wissenschaftliche vs. historische split). My reason is that this overemphasises the source genre of Gen 1, without taking account its place in the final form of Genesis-Kings.

Before that post on Barr I (hopefully) explained my (unpopular, very untrendy) position here. Also relevant is this and this.

Thanks for resurrecting discussions, as I'd like to see if people can break through the normal sides of opinion on this one.

[N. T. Wrong]

Hmmmm...
Those 3 URLs should have been:
http://ntwrong.wordpress.com/2008/07/31/histheology/
http://ntwrong.wordpress.com/2008/07/31/bible-theology-history/
http://ntwrong.wordpress.com/2008/05/06/but-archaeology-does-disprove-the-bible/

[JohnFH]

Jonathan,

In many ways the differences do not and should not be striking. It's not quite the same thing, but think of a historical novel like Tolstoy's War and Peace. The description is verisimilar and for Tolstoy, who is musing continuously about the deep structure of history throughout the novel, explicit mention of God is appropriate in philosophical digression only. In the book of Genesis in the Bible and the Iliad, God or the gods are present and accounted for in episode after episode.

Is it the case that there are examples from the ancient world in which happenings actually occurring in the life of a single progenitor are not recounted in epic fashion?

It seems to me that things one told about progenitors tended to focus on ethnogenesis as a means by which to understand who we are and why we are where we are. A little bit like the purpose science fiction serves today (projection into the future, rather than retrojection into the past).

[JohnFH]

N. T.,

Your point about the dangers of a cosmology / history dichotomy is well taken. According to Genesis, the cosmos has a history - toledot - too.

I think we just have to accept the fact that in Genesis - 2 Kings, history in the sense of chronicle is intertwined with history in the sense of epic (ethnogenesis etc.), of etiological geneaology, and of cosmological and anthropological narrative (referred to by some as "myth").

A very rough analogy: it's like having Hesiod, Homer, Herodotus, and some Orphic stuff forged into a single narrative.

As far as the truth question goes, it's not that I don't see a ton of truth of various kinds conveyed by Homer, Hesiod, Herodotus, and Orphism. It's just that the narrative and metanarrative of Genesis - 2 Kings resonates more deeply with me, precisely because I am a Christian.

There is absolutely nothing odd about my situation. If one prefers the corpus of Nietzsche to that of the Bible in terms of a "great code," if one prefers to both something like the corpus of Henry David Thoreau or Ayn Rand or what have you, that is in the nature of human choice.

In the end, one cannot but return to the truth question. The genre question is merely a pleasant distraction.

[N. T. Wrong]

John wrote:
it's like having Hesiod, Homer, Herodotus, and some Orphic stuff forged into a single narrative.

I very much agree. But there's no need to keep it that hypothetical. It's very much like the Greek genealogists, eg esp Hecataeus, and also like Manetho and Berossus.

And it's not coincidental that the Greek historiographers date ca. 500 BC and the near eastern derivatives ca. 300 BC -- this is the period of the formation of the Yehud historiography, too.

[JohnFH]

N.T.,

I was worried for a moment that our only (!) substantive disagreement would be on the truth question.

The literature that we know comes from the late Persian period: Ezra-Nehemiah and 1-2 Chronicles. The literature that we know comes from the early Persian period: Zechariah-Haggai-Malachi. The literature that we know comes the immediately preceding period: Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah 40-66. I admit that there are dissenting voices with regard to the dates of these corpora. But the fact that minimalism involves redating everything against its prima facie cultural period and Sitz im Leben is not exactly a point in its favor.

To the extent that specific content of Genesis-2 Kings is capable of alignment and interpolation in the above sequence, it would be in the exilic and early post-exilic period, not later.

On the other hand, there are Psalms and a fairly large corpus of prophetic literature in the Hebrew Bible that are most plausibly dated to the 8th, 7th, and 6th cent. BCE. A very good case can be made and has been made that the Deuteronomistic History went through several editions, beginning in the 8th and concluding in the 6th cent BCE, with the inclusion of materials best dated to the 9th cent. BCE and earlier; the same applies to the content of P, H, and D, datable to the 8th-6th cent. BCE.; the same is true of good part of Genesis - Numbers, with the earliest legal material for example, the Covenant Code, 9th - 8th cent. BCE perhaps in its current form. All of this corresponds to the dates of most examples of epigraphic Hebrew we have: 8th - 6th cent. BCE.

From a systemic point of view, if one approaches the corpus of literature in the Hebrew Bible from the broadest perspectives available - a sense of the Syro-Palestinian archaeological record from 1000 to 300 BCE, a sense of the history of the Hebrew language in that same period, a sense of themes and developments in cognate literatures of the same period (Akkadian, Egyptian, Phoenician, Old Aramaic, Imperial Aramaic, Greek) - one expects the floruit of ancient Hebrew literature to coincide with the 8th-6th cent. BCE, with a prelude and postlude.

I would say that minimalists have a habit of ignoring the obvious on these matters. But the debate is a fruitful one, and I certainly want to see it continue.

[N. T. Wrong]

I'm not unsympathetic to the substance of what you're saying. Don't go labelling me a minimalist or something. You know how I can't stand labels.

Mind you, the epigraphic evidence is fairly thin, and the history of the Hebrew language is currently moot. But, I quite accept that there are much earlier histories in the late Persian Gen-Kings history, and much earlier Psalms in the Hellenistic-era Psalter. It's the final form of Gen-Kings which interests me, and the comparable historiographical development evidenced in the 'post-exilic' (400s BC-) period.

Which brings us back to Hecataeus and what he was doing... Any thoughts there?

[JohnFH]

N.T.,

I suspect you have thought more on the subject matter of Hecataeus than I have. My question is this: does H interpret the myths on their own terms? That is what we should try to do, when comparing Enuma Elish and Genesis, for example: make an emic comparison, at least as a starting point.

Stefan Stenudd's online discussion of these things, BTW, is more thorough than I might have expected.

[Wayne Leman]

Interestingly, the same point can be made about taking English translations of the Bible literally. If we do, we find that they communicate very little, if any, of the original biblical meaning underlying the translation. And that is an issue of translation accuracy, which is of concern to all serious Bible students, whether liberal or conservative.

Please note that I turned on its head the usual dictum to translate the bibical texts literally. I'm referring the taking the translations of those texts literally.

[J. K. Gayle]

either literal or underlying meanings, Wayne?

Why not both and more?

[JohnFH]

Wayne,

That's an interesting comment. BTW, the point of this post I consider of considerable importance, but it is reductive. Let me illustrate with Gen 3:1:

The serpent was the shrewdest / most nakedly cunning / smoothest operator of all the wild things the Lord God made.

In my translation, the metalepsis of Maurice Sendak's book works well, it seems. But that's not my point. A verse like this has to be taken literally in severally different interlocking ways before it can be grasped non-literally, which is, after all, its ultimate literal (genre-accurate) meaning. In brief, you have to let it register that a flesh-and-blood snake is described, who is very "smooth / naked / shrewd." At the same time, you have to let it register that the serpent stands for transcendent evil (elsewhere referred to as "sin lurking at the door" in Gen 4:7, and the "Enemy," "Satan," etc. elsewhere) who / which is also "smooth / naked / shrewd."

As I've remarked on other occasions, I prefer a translation that preserves metaphors and more generally, the vehicles of complex genres (genres to be read at more one level, literal and so-called non-literal levels).

At the moment I am bent all out of shape because I noticed that NLT Genesis 3:14; Isa 49:23; Mic 7:17; and Ps 72:9 dissolve the literal language of "eating dirt" / "licking the dust" in 3 out of 4 instances. Concordance is smashed, and the use of these idioms in English throughout the history of literature, song, and common speech severed, all in the name of clarity. Not to mention that you cannot work back from the text to a snake's Jacobson's organ anymore. NLTSB does not correct for this in the notes either. I really am disappointed.

[JohnFH]

Kurk,

You say, "Why not both and more?"

Ah, someone who understands literature.

[J. K. Gayle]

John,

You say, "A verse like this has to be taken literally in severally different interlocking ways before it can be grasped non-literally, which is, after all, its ultimate literal (genre-accurate) meaning."

Ah, someone who understands Sendak, Genesis (in Hebrew and English), and translation.

[Edward T. Babinski]

Can you supply a verse by verse commentary of the primeval history chapters of Genesis from creation to the tower of babel, so we can understand how your method of exegesis and interpretation plays itself out?

Personally, it looks to me like you're playing word games.

[JohnFH]

Edward,

Nice of you to ask. Gradually, I may do something like what you suggest.

But really, you can find excellent attempts by Origen, Augustine, Calvin, Barth, Bonhoeffer, and von Rad, to name just a few, to read these chapters in terms of their genre, that is, in terms of anthropological archetypes, a world deprived of indwelling divinity, and a strong and consistent theology of transcendence.

Except for more recent authors, of course, the assumption has usually been that the chapters are also literally true in the sense some fundamentalists think they are literally true. But that did not stop the better exegetes from concentrating on the archetypal truths the chapters convey.

It has taken Jews and Christians a bit of time to realize that in order to be true, the dialogues in Gen 2-3 do not have be transcripts of recordings, so to speak, of particular conversations that took place at the dawn of the human race. The dialogues are true because they accurately reflect conflicts and situations which are the stuff of life and especially because their emphasis on God's benevolence in the midst of contradictions captures the truth one needs to know to live life with grounded hope. But it is the case that the realization of these chapters' true genre takes nothing away from the vastness and ambition of their scope. The opposite is true.

All that I can add to the better Jewish and Christian exegesis of the past is attention to ANE background, the rich tradition of Jewish exegesis found in the piyyutim, and perhaps a firmer grasp of the Hebrew than is the norm among exegetes.