When I was in high school, I spent a couple years as a fundamentalist. To be honest, apart from the horror I caused my parents and the damage I did to my friendships with “unbelievers,” I am in many ways happy that I had this time. Not only did my close-minded bibliolatry (that is, worshiping the Bible) lead me to the kinds of probing questions that now drive my career in academic biblical studies (in many ways, I am often disproving assumptions I once ardently held), but it also gives me an “insider’s” point of reference for speaking of those we call fundies. One point that often confused me in those days was the need to read the Bible “literally.” My pastor mentioned that we need to read the Bible “literally” rather than “allegorically.” Apparently, “liberals” (i.e., any person who was not a fundamentalist) read the Bible “allegorically.”

Hmmm. I thought to myself: Maybe I misunderstand what an allegory is. Is it not a story in which each character, figure, or event could function as a representation of some abstract idea? Perhaps some “liberal” Christians read certain texts symbolically, such as the resurrection as a symbol of some kind of hope, rather than a historical reality. But allegorically? This is an allegorical interpretation:

The table made from acacia wood is the Holy Scripture composed out of the bold words and deeds of the holy fathers. . . . This [table] has length, because it suggests to us perseverance in religious undertakings; width, because it suggests the amplitude of charity; height, because it suggests the hope of the everlasting reward. (Bede, On the Tabernacle [Holder trans.], 21)

That didn’t seem to be what “liberals” were doing. Indeed, I left fundamentalism when I started studying the Bible academically as an undergraduate, and after making the shift, I have never taken a text “allegorically” that I didn’t think was supposed to be taking allegorically. Revelation, for example, has allegorical elements. Many parables are something close to allegories. But, after my transition, what set me apart from my fundamentalist brothers and sisters was my desire to locate the biblical texts within their own social, cultural, and historical environment. In Paul’s interpretation of the Greco-Roman “household code” in Ephesians, for example, I saw something quite revolutionary. Paul was not going to “rock the boat” and change the lingo for headship and submission in marriage, but instead he redefined it. What does it mean for a husband to be the “head” of his wife? To love her sacrificially . . . not to “tell her what to do” or “make the tough decisions” or “be the spiritual leader.” The verse 5:21 sets up the passage: Submit to one another. He doesn’t need to spend much time saying how wives submit to their husbands because this is an accepted cultural reality. He does spend some time, though, showing how being a “head” in marriage can actually mean submission. So, which reading is more “literal”? Mine? Or the endless horrid wedding sermons on this passage that talk about the husband being the “spiritual leader” of the household? Actually, I feel that my reading more accurately considers what the text “literally” meant for the author and his readers/hearers. My fundamentalist friends understand the “literal” meaning (or the “plain sense”) of the passage to be how these particular words sound today.

Whomever we decide is more “literal,” the fact remains that “literalness” is not the main distinguishing characteristic here. The main difference is how willing one is to contextualize the words of the Bible within their original situation. True, many fundamentalists work with the original context and do scholarship in this area, but usually (forgive me for my broad generalizations) with the intent of proving their understanding of the “literal” meaning is correct. So, let’s drop this whole litmus test of who “reads the Bible literally.” This is a remnant of the Protestants reacting against what they saw as convoluted allegorical interpretations of parts of the Roman Catholic Church of the time (something like what I quoted above) [Note: I'm not dissing Catholics here]. But the dichotomy has changed! I read literal texts literally. I read symbolic texts symbolically. I try to make sense of the evidence that we have as best I can, without trying to “prove” some particular doctrine. I’m not claiming that I am without an ideology or that I am some saintly or infallible interpreter of the biblical text. No, but I try to be willing to let the biblical text and its environs challenge my ideology, to let the text read me. And I think that’s the difference.

Permitting all goes as planned, I will be taking my third doctoral seminar next quarter while at Fuller for my MDiv. It is a class on the “History of New Testament Scholarship” taught by Donald Hagner. That’s why I’m thinking about interpretation these days. It strikes me that the study of the history of scholarship is the interpretation of interpretation. It is difficult to wrap my mind around how many interpretive layers we have to deal with to think about the Bible, in its many forms. I think we would all do well to remember just how much interpretation is going on and hope that it gives us a little humility as we try to be our own interpreters.