The Bible Unfiltered-Part 3

Unyielding Literalism: You Reap What You Sow

So we talked last time about how Bible interpretation really can be harmful. If you remember I mentioned how our own historical circumstances produced significant challenges to biblical authority. But unfortunately, sometimes we have no one but ourselves to blame for making the content of Scripture seem absurd.

Recently, there has been a new flat earth movement circulating among Christians. Yes—you heard me correctly: there’s a growing crusade of “Bible teachers” busily contending for the faith by teaching their followers (in church and online) that the Bible requires us to believe the earth is flat. This idea is related to another “Bible fact” that is experiencing a revival: geocentrism, the idea that the earth is the center of our solar system, not the sun. “Biblical geocentrism” is based on the interpretation of verses like........

Psalm 104:5

Psalm 104:5 ESV

5 He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved.

(the sun and other planets must revolve around the earth since the earth cannot be moved).

Now, I know what you’re thinking. What about space travel? Satellites sent into orbit that enable (dare I say) global communication? Airline flight patterns that use the curvature of the earth to cheat passengers out of extra frequent flyer miles (okay, maybe that isn’t the carrier’s motivation)? The truth is these are conspiracies are contrived by people who hate the Bible. And are being adopted by believers who should know better. But that is how information can be used to manipulate people … make up lies to cover up the fact that the Bible has the truth about how God created the earth.

Why would believers think this way?

It’s actually pretty simple:

hyper-literalism.

The sanctified flat-earthers have blindly presumed that the Bible’s pre-scientific cosmology—which is well known to Old Testament scholars—has to be taken as a literal reality that trumps basic science (and human experience) or else biblical inspiration and inerrancy have to be rejected. This thinking is deeply flawed.

The Bible’s pre-scientific cosmology is what it is because God decided to prompt people who lived in a pre-scientific age to produce the books of the Bible, not because the earth is really round and flat with a solid dome over it. The flat-earthers and geocentrists sort of skip the dome part, unless they deny the lunar landings and the existence of the international space station. God didn’t ask the people he picked to be something they weren’t (modern scientists who understood celestial mechanics). He prompted them via his Spirit to tell some important truths: all we know was created by God—including us—and so we are accountable to him and dependent on him for life beyond this terrestrial existence. The biblical writers didn’t need a modern science education to communicate, through their own worldview frame of reference and symbolic metaphors well known throughout the ancient world (their cultural context), who the true Creator was and why it mattered. That’s taking the Bible for what it is and interpreting it in light of its own context, not ours. But too many Christians have been brainwashed into thinking that absolute, uncompromising literalism is a synonym for believing in inspiration and inerrancy. It isn’t—and never has been throughout the entire history of believing Christianity.

Literalism as Idolatry

There are essentially two subclutures within the American church today. It is either a staunch fundamentalism or, what we can call for convenience, popular evangelicalism that divorces itself from a traditional understanding of Scripture. Both of those Christian sub-cultures exalt the “literal” interpretation of the Bible, especially when it comes to creation and prophecy. Granted, the notion that the Bible teaches a flat earth isn’t common to those contexts. But over-emphasis on biblical literalism has a cost. Literalism can become idolatry. Well meaning people in the church have proposed a number of ridiculous Bible teachings, among them:

• Babies are really stored in a man’s sperm (the Hebrew word for “seed” [zrʿ] refers to children and is never used of women); genetics is a lie (Gen 13:16; zrʿ = offspring)

• The Bible teaches teleportation (Acts 8:39–40)

• Flying saucers are piloted by angels (Ezek 1; Zech 5:5–8)

• Animals could talk in Eden (Gen 3)

I could extend the list, but I think you get the point. But here’s a point that’s less obvious that you might miss: when we unquestioningly teach from the Bible that literalness is next to godliness, we teach them to think poorly. Don’t believe me? Let’s continue.

What Does “Literal” Mean Anyway?

Many readers have heard the old bromide in defense of literal Bible interpretation: “When the plain sense makes sense, seek no other sense.” It’s pithy. If you don’t think too much about it, it might even sound like it makes sense. It’s actually not helpful.

It might sound odd, but “literal interpretation” needs to be interpreted. The meaning is far from clear. Consider the word.......

“water”

What does it “literally” mean? Is it a noun or a verb? In either case, what exactly is its “plain sense”? Here are some options. As a noun, “water” can be:

• a chemical compound (H2O)

• a liquid beverage (“I’d like some water”)

• a natural body of water (“look at all that water”), but which kind?

- an ocean

- a sea

- a lake

- a pond

- a river

- a stream

- a creek

- an inlet

As a verb, “water” can mean:

• to irrigate (“water the fields”)

• to provide hydration (“he watered the cattle”)

• to salivate (“my mouth watered”)

• to cry (“his eyes watered”)

So which of the above is the “literal” meaning? Which one is the “plain” meaning? That’s the point. They’re all plain.

What distinguishes them from one another?

Context and metaphor.

Things get even more interesting when you move into metaphorical meanings for water—and metaphorical meaning can be exactly what context requires. “Water” can be used metaphorically for a life source, purification, transformation, motion, or danger. The metaphors work because of the physical properties of water—and still describe real things. Non-literal doesn’t mean “not real.” And as the saga of sanctified geocentrism tells us, devotion to literalism won’t necessarily produce accurate—or even coherent—Bible interpretation.

Everything in the Bible Isn’t about Jesus

If you’ve been a Christian for very long or were raised in a Christian church, chances are that you’ve heard that the Bible is really all about Jesus. That cliché has some truth to it, but it’s misleading.

The truth is that there’s a lot in the Bible that isn’t about Jesus. Procedures for diagnosing and treating leprosy (Lev 13:1–14:57) aren’t about Jesus. Laws forbidding people who’ve had sex or lost blood (Lev 15) from entering sacred space aren’t about Jesus. The spiritual, social, and moral corruption in the days of the judges (Judg 17–21) wasn’t put in the Bible to tell us about Jesus. The Tower of Babel incident (Gen 11:1–9) doesn’t point to Jesus. When Ezra commanded Jews who’d returned from exile to divorce the Gentile women they’d married (Ezra 9–10), he wasn’t foreshadowing anything about Jesus.

The point is straightforward: No Israelite would have thought of a messianic deliverer when reading these or many other passages. No New Testament writer alludes to them and many other portions of Scripture to explain who Jesus was or what he said.

Why Is This Idea So Prevalent?

In my experience, the prevailing motivation seems to be to encourage people to read their Bible. That’s a good incentive. But I’ve also come across other factors, namely that it serves as an excuse to avoid the hard work of figuring out what’s really going on in many passages. People are taught to extrapolate what they read to some point of connection with the life and ministry of Jesus—no matter how foreign to Jesus the passage appears. Imagination is not interpretation. Not only does it lack boundaries that prevent very flawed interpretations (and even heresies), but it makes Scripture serve our ability to be clever. Recognizing this is important for some simple but important reasons.

First, if we filter passages that aren’t about Jesus through something Jesus did and said, we won’t have any hope of understanding what those passages were actually about. Nothing in Scripture is there accidentally. The Bible is an intelligent creation. Our task as those with a high view of Scripture is to discern why God wanted a given passage in the Bible in the first place.

Second, the assumption can lead to minimizing or ignoring passages in which we can’t clearly see Jesus. Since Jesus is central to God’s sovereign plan of salvation, passages that don’t add some detail about his teachings or the gospel story are considered peripheral or optional. Why bother spending serious time in a passage that “doesn’t matter” for having eternal life? We either believe that’s true and act accordingly (i.e., studying the whole counsel of God), or we’ll act as though God’s decision was random and unintelligent.

Third, becoming skilled at seeing Jesus in places where he isn’t can discourage others from Bible study or lead others under one’s spiritual charge to believe we have special (even authoritative) insight. When “Jesus stuff” isn’t obvious in a given passage and we’ve been taught that it’s somehow all about him, it’s easy to just give up and let leaders tell us what they “see.” People shut off their brains when they are led to believe they can’t think well about Scripture.

The bottom line is that we can talk about the inspiration and authority of the Bible all day long and still fall prey to marginalizing its content with familiar clichés that let us off the hook from doing the hard work of interpretation. While the drama of the biblical epic ultimately leads to Jesus, he isn’t the ultimate focal point of every passage. That’s homiletical flair, not the reality of the text.

Marxism and Biblical Theology Aren’t Synonyms

I believe Christians should be involved in politics. But while my interest in political discourse is high, I also have to confess to being an American political atheist—I don’t put my faith in any political party. The answer to the nation’s problems—to those plaguing a beleaguered world—is the kingdom of God, not a kingdom made by human hands, even American ones.

Why am I telling you this? It’s to make the point that, it is an all too common notion in Christian circles that the New Testament supports socialism. How many of you have ever heard this? I have heard it preached from the pulpit on a number of occasions.

This thought has problems on a number of levels. It shows a fundamentally flawed biblical theology of poverty and care for the poor, confuses the gospel with socioeconomic concerns, ignores overt anti-Marxist statements by Jesus and the apostles, and misrepresents both the Bible and communist political theory.

The Old Testament

The Old Testament makes certain elements of any discussion of our topic pretty clear. Several biblical figures of high spiritual character have considerable wealth. The most obvious example is likely Abraham (Gen 24:34–35). Two of the Ten Commandments presuppose private property and criminalize its theft (Exod 20:15; Deut 5:21). Wealth is the fruit of labor (Prov 10:4; 13:4). Inherited wealth is also not condemned (Deut 21:16; Prov 19:14).

The biblical world knew poverty all too well. The Old Testament has a wide range of words describing poverty and the poor. But what do these terms indicate about the status of the poor? That is, what kinds of poverty does the Old Testament describe? Poverty had various causes in the Bible. The most common were warfare (foreign invasion), famine and drought, laziness, and being victimized by the unscrupulous. Does the Bible tell us that being wealthy is inherently unjust, automatically leads to injustice, or necessarily causes injustice? Anyone spending some serious time in the biblical text will learn that the answer to this question is no. Wealth is not an inherent evil according to biblical theology. What God hates isn’t wealth—it’s the abuse of the poor by those who, for example, extort them, manipulate them, or withhold legal justice from them (Isa 3:14–15; 32:7; Amos 2:6–7; 5:12; Jer 5:28).

The question of context is also crucial. I would invite readers to read the short essay by Jon Levenson, “Poverty and the State in Biblical Thought.” Levenson is a Jewish biblical scholar. His article is important for helping us think about the relationship of the Israelite state to poverty as it’s discussed in the Hebrew Bible. One of Levenson’s insights is significant:

The laws which protect the poor, then, are addressed to the individual and the clan, the local, highly organic unit of social organization. These laws are, thus, religious commandments, rather than state policy. They are obligations established by God and owed directly to the poor and not to the government as a mediator between rich and poor.

The crucial point here is that the biblical call to care for the poor is not one that calls for that care to come from the authority of a state with coercive power. It is a call to individuals who seek to please God.

So where does this idea come from?

The New Testament

Jesus and the apostles got their theology about poverty from the Hebrew Bible. While, in Jesus’ words, there will always be poor (John 12:8)—and so, unequal economic classes—God doesn’t disdain the poor. Instead, he is displeased when they are oppressed by the wealthy (e.g., Deut 24:14; Prov 14:31; Zech 7:10; James 2:6).

Still, some careless thinkers believe the New Testament endorses Marxism. Acts 2:42–45 is often used as a proof text for people who presume the New Testament teaches this.

42 And they were devoting themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayers.… 44 And all who believed were in the same place, and had everything in common. 45 And they began selling their possessions and property, and distributing these things to all, to the degree that anyone had need. (leb)

One of Marxism’s famous slogans—“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”—seems to fit this passage in Acts 2. But that takes Marxism and Acts 2 out of context.

What is the obvious problem with view this passage that way?

Marxist interpreters of Acts 2 miss the obvious fact that everything we read in that passage was voluntary. There was no all-powerful state (or religious authority) demanding redistribution of income and wealth. In Acts 5 believers were voluntarily selling property and distributing the proceeds among the believers. Even when Ananias and his wife sinned by deceptively withholding part of a property sale, Peter scolded, “And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal?” There is no coercion in this picture.

Acts 2 is also no justification for Marxist theory as an “application” of the passage for another reason: it would contradict the teaching of Jesus. It was Jesus who spoke of the kingdom of heaven as distinct from the state (Matt 22:21).

Food for Thought

In my experience, Christians who get warm, fuzzy feelings about Marxism have a genuine concern for the poor, but then they filter the New Testament through a very skewed understanding of both the Bible and the philosophy of Karl Marx.

It’s easy to spot the glaring inconsistencies when people ignorant of biblical theology (including Christians) assume the Bible approves Marxism. But biblical theology doesn’t endorse a lot of what we see in capitalism today either. Scripture is clear that wealth is not for hoarding or cultivating superiority. God wants wealth used to bless people. We as Christians violate Jesus’ teaching about the separation of church and state when we forsake the care of the poor in tangible ways, presuming that the state will act on our behalf. In biblical theology, care for others is a personal spiritual duty, not something to be handed off to a secular authority. But that is basically what we do. We presume the state will act as the church should—as we should. That theology is just as bad as pretending the Bible teaches Marxism.

How to (Mis)Interpret Prophecy

There’s no shortage of advice on how to interpret the Bible. One maxim that I’ve already mentioned advises, “When the plain sense makes sense, seek no other sense.” I’ve heard it quoted when it comes to biblical prophecy—encouraging people to interpret literally, at face value. Although that sounds like good advice, some New Testament writers didn’t get the memo.

One of the most well-known examples of a non-literal reading appears in Acts 15 when the apostle James quotes Amos 9:11–12:

Acts 15:16–18

Acts 15:16–18 ESV

16 “ ‘After this I will return, and I will rebuild the tent of David that has fallen; I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, 17 that the remnant of mankind may seek the Lord, and all the Gentiles who are called by my name, says the Lord, who makes these things 18 known from of old.’

Amos 9:11–12

Amos 9:11–12 ESV

11 “In that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old, 12 that they may possess the remnant of Edom and all the nations who are called by my name,” declares the Lord who does this.

Comparison

In the Amos prophecy, God promises to one day “raise up the booth of David and repair its breaches, and raise up its ruins, and rebuild it.” Hearing the language of repair and rebuilding, we might think of a physical structure. “Booth” (sukkah) is a word used for tents at the Feast of Booths (Lev 23:34). Reading literally, we might think that the tabernacle, still used in David’s day and brought into the temple after it was built by Solomon, might be the focus of the prophecy.

Many interpret Amos 9 this way, believing the passage describes the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem in the end times. The “possession” of Edom and the nations who are destined to call the Lord their God would seem to fit that context.

But Luke, the writer of Acts, doesn’t interpret the passage that way. He doesn’t take it “plainly” or literally. In Acts 15, he describes the fledgling church gathering in Jerusalem to hear that Paul and Barnabas had taken the gospel to Gentiles, who had embraced it. Peter and James came to their defense. To prove the momentous event had been prophesied in the Old Testament, James quoted Amos 9:11–12. James (and the writer, Luke) understood the language of building and repairing to refer to a person—the resurrected Jesus, the son of David. They also don’t refer to “the remnant of Edom” but instead “the remnant of mankind.”

James and Luke used the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament. The Hebrew version of the prophecy had “Edom” (Hebrew ʾedom), but the Septuagint reads “mankind” (reading the Hebrew as ʾadam). The words share the same consonants but are otherwise entirely different.

The switch to “mankind” fits the occasion of this meeting as well as the ministry of Paul and Barnabas. The Gentiles—all the nations of mankind, not just Israel—are now accepting the gospel. But that is not how the passage read in Hebrew. The interpretation by James and Luke is not a literal one, but an abstract or “spiritual” one, based on a different reading from a translation.

Did James and Luke misread the Bible, then? Not necessarily. The “remnant of Edom” could be considered an abstract reference to “non-elect” people: Remember that the Edomites were descendants of Esau (Gen 36:1), who surrendered his birthright (Gen 25). Therefore, the non-literal translation of “mankind” in the Septuagint version of Amos 9:11 is within the realm of accurate meaning.

Comparing these passages illustrates important lessons: Interpreting biblical prophecy cannot be distilled to a simple maxim, and everything cannot be taken literally. The New Testament shows us otherwise.