So to sum up the last post on this topic, I defined 3 different interpretation types of 2 different times of writing, story telling and declarative statements. To give a brief overview of them:
Story telling -
Literal and historical acceptance
Moral/lessons
Symbolism
Declarative statements -
Literal
Similar but modified meaning
Borrowed phrase but different meaning
This is by no means exhaustive, but it suits the purposes for this discussion. Nor are these precise categories. Also, keep in mind that a text can be taken in all the manners, and not just one. Acceptance of symbolism does not exclude the possibility of a historical interpretation, or vice versa. This is especially true knowing that God can work history and the method of storying telling out that all three can possibly be true (this is true for declarative statements).
Now, lets see if we can find these principles being used in the Bible. Basically, we would get our vindication from using quotes in such a manner by the way that the New Testament authors interpreted the Old Testament.
I believe that there are times for literal interpretations is obvious, though to the degree one should take the Bible literally is disagreed upon. But for now, I will assume that a literal interpretation is vindicated and will not endeavor to show how it is used in the New Testament (though if necessary I will provide evidence).
What about interpreting stories for a moral or lesson? One should look no further than Hebrews 11, which describes the faith of many people in the Old Testament. There the author talks about the situations they were in and how faith was pivotal in what they did, even though the Old Testament texts scantly talk about the results of their faith.
As for symbolic, Paul often times uses stories of the Old Testament as symbolic of Jesus Christ. A big one is the character of Adam. This is more of foreshadowing, but it is still taking a text presented in a story format taken in a symbolic matter.
As for modified meaning of a declarative text in Luke 13:27. There Jesus quotes from Psalms 6:8. In that Psalm, David tells people to depart from him because he was suffered but had prayed to God and was going to receive an answer. Whereas Jesus uses it, with the same basic meaning, but slightly altered to refer to being cast away at the judgment.
Finally, adopting the language but having a totally different meaning was demonstrated previously by Paul in Romans 10:6-8.
Again, this is not exhaustive and there are many other techniques of quoting the Old Testament in the Bible. My purpose is to demonstrate that there are some figurative ways the Old Testament was used.
In the next post, I will look into what is the proper manner in which to use the different interpretation techniques and what that usage means.
