How many have read stories such as Narnia or the Lord of the Rings trilogy and find deeper messages about the Christian faith in them? These books, along with a host of others, present a story in a literal way (albeit, not generally historical) but have a deeper meaning to them, shown through key actions and themes throughout the story. This type of teaching is often referred to as allegory. However, allegory is not a concept that has been reserved for books that present themselves as fiction. Allegory has also been used to draw teachings out of the Bible.
A big area of contention in some groups is how should we interpret the Bible. This has been an issue even in the early church. For instance, the Antiochian and Alexandrian schools of thought for Biblical interpretation differed, with the former emphasizing a more literal approach to Scriptural understanding whereas the Alexandrian school had a more figurative approach to Scripture (though neither side was exclusively one or the other).
Today, there are some groups that are very prone to literal interpretation with literal regard for allegory. Take for instance many conservative Christians and most Bible scholars. Their approach to Scripture is rooted in a historical-grammatical approach to the Scriptures. In other words, they try to understand the texts of the Bible by understand the times in which it was written and through the grammar of the language in which the text was written. The assumption that is made about the Bible is that each text has only one intended meaning and no other. However, this principle is not applied strictly at all points, as many recognize that much of the commandments within the Law of Moses, such as the sacrificial system, are shadows of Jesus Christ and His sacrifice.
On the other hand, there are many groups that approach much of Scripture allegorically, even some scholars. For instance, many take Genesis 1-11 to be narratives presented in order to convey deeper meanings. Some take the stance that one can not know the literal historical value of the text, and others say it is not possible. So they glean teachings from the text by looking for themes and key parts of the text that could be interpreted as commentary on an aspect of life or theology. However, even in their attempts to take deeper meanings from the text, they have to use some literal interpretation techniques in order to be able to take some allegorical teachings. Furthermore, there is a greater tendency with those who approach the Bible with a more allegorical approach to see a plurality of meanings within the text. This is the theme within the emerging church today that emphasizes narratives and the teachings that can be taken from them. With post-modernism (though this is not a well defined term) and relativism more prevalent today, it is an increasingly more popular way of approaching the Bible.
Who is right? What is the proper approach to understanding the Bible? The Bible itself does not specifically say "you shall interpret the Bible literally" (or the opposite). Nor does it prescribe directions as to when to use what type of Bible interpretation method. Therefore, in order to try to obtain an answer, we must look at how we as humans typically understand the written language. In the next post, I will attempt to look deeper into how we are understand written language and work from there.
Terms to define:
hermeneutics - the development and study of theories of the interpretation and understanding of texts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics)
allegory - a figurative mode of representation conveying a meaning other than the literal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory)
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