Literal and Figurative Language

One of the most persistent confusions in popular Bible reading is the assumption that reading "literally" is the most faithful and most respectful way to read the Bible. In fact, taking the Bible literally where it intends to be taken figuratively is as much a misreading as taking it figuratively where it intends to be taken literally. The question is never "should I read this literally or figuratively?" The question is always "what does this text intend - and how does it use language to communicate that intention?"

The Bible uses figurative language extensively - more extensively than many readers realize, because much of it has become so familiar that its figurative character is no longer noticed. When Jesus says "I am the bread of life," "I am the door," "I am the vine," he is using metaphor - the language of comparison and image rather than literal description. When the Psalmist says "God is my rock and my fortress," he is not making a geological claim. When Isaiah says "the mountains and the hills will burst into song," he is using personification to express the joy of creation at God's redemptive act. These are not evasions of literal truth - they are ways of expressing truths that literal language cannot fully capture.

The question of how to read the first chapters of Genesis is the most contested instance of the literal-figurative question in contemporary Christianity. Young earth creationism insists on reading Genesis 1-2 as literal, historical description - six 24-hour days, a global flood, all species created in their present forms. Other traditions read the same chapters as theological narrative using ancient Near Eastern literary conventions that communicate truth about who made the world and why, without intending to provide a scientific account of how. Neither of these is a frivolous reading - both have serious defenders who can articulate their interpretive principles. What is not defensible is the assumption that one of these approaches is "taking the Bible literally" and the other is "rejecting the Bible." Both are making interpretive judgments about what kind of text Genesis is and how it communicates.

Discerning whether a passage intends literal or figurative language requires attending to several factors: the genre of the book, the immediate context, the conventions of the type of writing being used, and the way the original audience would have understood it. Ancient readers of Revelation understood that beasts with multiple heads represent kingdoms, not literal monsters - because they knew the conventions of apocalyptic literature. Ancient readers of Genesis 1 understood that God "resting" on the seventh day was not describing divine fatigue - because they understood the narrative convention of the divine rest as the culmination of the temple-building narrative. Developing sensitivity to these conventions is part of what it means to read the Bible as the ancient document it is, rather than as a modern text written in familiar idiom.