Biblical hermeneutics: Literal, allegorical, or both? (Part 2)

When we communicate, we communicate in many ways and forms. Even in written or spoken language, there can be multiple ways to communicate a certain point or idea. However, the natural way people communicate is in a literal manner. When I say "I am hungry" it is pretty likely I am trying to speak fact that I want to eat something. This is the most natural and basic form of communication we humans have. However, it is not the only way.

Do you remember as a child when your parents or someone else would tell you a story? Many times the story was told to entertain the child. Often times though, there was a moral behind the story. The story itself was presented as if it actually happened, even though it may or may not convey an actual event. A big purpose of the story though, whether it is real or not, was to give a specific message. For instance, the story of George Washington and the cherry tree. Regardless if it is true or not (and it probably is not) it teaches the moral that we should not lie. This is a perfectly acceptable way to communicate, even if it was not a real story. Stories sometimes helps to convey a message better than a direct plain statement, like "You should not lie." This is because we are emotional people, and stories evoke more emotions than a regular straight-forward statement. In this type of interpretation of a story though, whether it is true or not is not the issue. Rather, it is the meaning of the story.

However, those types of stories with a moral behind it are a different type of allegory than that of stories like Narnia. In stories such as George Washington and the cherry tree, there is a specific message behind it. The meaning is up forward and often times presents itself in a a specific action and it is a simple message. Other allegorical stories, on the other hand, are more expansive in their meaning. They also convey allegorical meanings differently. For instance in the Chronicles of Narnia, the lion Aslan symbolically represents Jesus Christ, whereas the White Witch may be said to symbolically represent Satan. In these type of stories, the allegory is represented through symbolic means that the reader must connect. They are more hidden and are rarely seen. Also, many, if not most, of the characters, events, etc. that are contained in such stories have a deeper symbolic meaning.

However, it must be said that the stories that have a deeper meaning still require a certain level of literal understanding, because we communicate literal ideas through language and then the hearer makes connections between the literal meaning and deeper meaning. But, how literal the story is taken varies, because the story may be taken in a literal manner, but it is not taken in a very literal way, as if to say the story is historical. But a literal meaning must be understood before any deeper meaning can be gleaned.

Communications though takes many other forms other than just story telling. The bulk of the Old Testament is a collection of stories, but there are many declarative statements that are talking about the present reality. For instance, the letters of Paul have very little story telling in them. Instead, they are more descriptive of an idea. That type of writing in most any context would be taken literally with very few attempts to search for allegorical meanings.

However, this does not stop us from using certain parts of such texts in alternative ways. For instance, we may hear a speaker talking about being a entrepreneur and he makes the statement "Never give up." Taken in the context of his speech, it is talking about always make every effort to make your business succeed. He is not necessarily talking about enduring in other situations. However, a listener might take that quote and apply it to other facets of their life. This does not betray the meaning of the quote, but it is used in a different way than the author intended it. We expand the meaning of a statement to include something that it did not originally mean.

We can go even further in such borrowing of words. We can sometimes strip something that is said of its original meaning and give it an entirely new meaning. We may possible modify it a little bit or leave it in is original form. I struggle as of the moment to give a non-Biblical example of such, so I will present a Biblical example. In Romans 10:6-8, Paul makes a loose quotation from Deuteronomy 30:12-14. Deuteronomy 30:12-14 talks about the fact that the people had the commandments of God and it was with them right there. Paul borrow and modifies the language in order to present a teaching not about commandments but about Jesus Christ and how He came to the earth from heaven and rose from the dead. The original usage and the modified usage are distinctly different. This type of usage is sometimes used in order to make remembering a specific teaching easier to remember by relating it to something we have heard.

It should be said that when we borrow statements and alter their meaning and little bit or a lot, we can not claim the original intent of the statement by the original author is in fact agreeing with what we are claiming. Nevertheless, these methods of borrowing the language of others is acceptable in certain instances.

Now I know that I have not given an exhaustive overview of how we interpret written and spoken language. Nor is it very technical. However, I hoped this gives you a basic idea of how we interpret statements in ways that can be acceptable in certain instances. In the next post, I will apply what we have here to Biblical interpretation.