Paul Derengowski, Ph.D.
It never ceases to amaze me just how arrogant some people are when it comes to the Bible, especially when so few of them have actually taken the time to pick it up and read it.
Recently, the LA Times published a Letter to the Editor written by a disgruntled individual (John Beckman) who criticized some Christian’s hermeneutical approach to Bible reading and then equating it with how some other individuals interpret the U.S. Constitution.
Reading the Bible literally, like how some people read the U.S. Constitution, is just simply wrong. It was never meant to be read that way.
Both are “living documents” and to arrive at anything more than a willy-nilly conclusion violates the sacred doctrine of diversity.
To add arbitrariness to insanity, the ever-nebulous “Scholars have long taught that the Bible was never meant to be read literally” claim was included to make the argument so. But, is the critic necessarily correct? Hardly.
While it is granted that not everything in the Bible is to be interpreted literally—God does not have apples in his eyes, nor wings upon His shoulders and personally tearing out your eyes to avoid sinful scandal is not Jesus’ prescription for it—the message of the Bible is to be taken “literally”.
Otherwise, the Bible essentially means nothing and is no different than any other religious piece written by the imagination of fallen human beings. Yet, is that not what the biblical critic wants everyone to believe, also?
Context is what is important when interpreting the Bible. If a person ignores the context, then the door is left open for all kinds of interpretations, including the misguided one which argues that it is not to be interpreted literally.
Of course, before anyone can understand the context of the Bible, it requires picking one up and actually reading it first.
It is something that few Bible critics who write Letters to the Editor are willing to do, because that would require putting some actual thought into the criticism that exceeds any reference to a nebulous “Bible scholar,” whom the critic has not read either, as the linchpin to make their argument so.
That being the case, all one would have to do is ask the critic, “Why should we take your criticism literally? You obviously have not read the Bible or at least you have not read it with a fair amount of comprehension. Why cannot we simply conclude that you actually believe in its literal interpretation—every word? After all, is it not okay to ignore the context of your commentary and simply make up our own and then impose upon you? Because, that is exactly what you are doing with the Bible.”
Then again, to ask such probing questions would not only cause the critic angst he could not handle, it would expose the critic’s real problem, which is not a literal interpretation the Bible; it is his own rebellion against God.
The critic wants to tell God how things are and what to do, rather than the other way around. Such arrogance on the part of the critic translates into other facets of life, whereby even the U.S. Constitution is a target of his derision or delusion.
From a Christian apologetic point-of-view, this kind of attack upon the Bible is a dime-a-dozen.
Thankfully, it does not take much to expose it for what it is, which comes by simply turning the critic’s argument upon him and then watching it crumble before his very eyes.
Amazingly, though, it will not be long before someone else will come along and use the same lame criticism.
Such is the nature of those who refuse to actually read the Bible, but feel authoritative enough to criticize it.
