The Myth of "Taking the Bible Literally"

Bible Thumper

There is a prevalent way of thinking today that divides Christians into two basic groups: those who "take the Bible literally" and those who do not. I used to think this way as well, until I started studying the Bible and realized that Biblical interpretation is much more nuanced than that.

The reality is that no one, I repeat, no one, takes the Bible completely literally. Not even the most conservative, narrow minded Bible thumpers take everything in the Bible literally. How can I make such a bold, sweeping assertion? It's simple. Just click on the illustration below.

Some things in the Bible, like any other collection of literature, are obviously and indisputably metaphorical. A metaphor is simply a figure of speech. I use them. You use them. Authors from every time, place, and language have utilized them. It's only natural that the Biblical writers would as well.

Of course this does not mean that we can pick and choose what we want to take as literal and what we want to take as metaphorical. The Bible is a cohesive unit, not a smorgasbord. There are ways of discerning when a statement is literal and when it is intended by the author to be a metaphor. So please don't say, "Well, I don't like this part of the Bible so I'm going to say it's a metaphor. That way I can just ignore it."

If you actually want to believe in the Bible as your greatest authority, you'll have to learn how to honestly discern the difference between metaphor and literality in Scripture. As the Biblical books were written thousands of years ago in different languages on the other side of the world, that can get a bit complicated sometimes. But it's not impossible.