Modern conservative Christians use the words of St. Paul to justify the subjugation of women; fundamentalists remind us that Leviticus tells us that homosexuality is "an abomination;" evangelicals point to the Quran as justifying murder, and this list could go on and on, all because readers of scripture insist on taking the text literally.
And to make matters worse, rather than looking at the whole cloth, these literalists, both fundamentalists and liberals, cherrypick the various scriptures to find that one nugget that supports their belief.
On top of that, they ignore those texts which everyone realizes cannot be taken literally. In Matthew, we are told: "If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away." Obviously, Jesus is not advocating the mutilation of our bodies as a punishment for sin. Most readers realize Jesus is symbolically telling us to avoid temptation.
As with the authors of the Old Testament, Jesus and his audience were Semites and were comfortable with the use of symbolic language, even when it included exaggeration. Why is it that today we can't see the whole picture instead of parsing each verse in isolation? It's as if we fear vagueness and are unwilling to accept contradictions -- incest is wrong, but our forebearers, Adam and Eve's children, had sex with each other.
Although most of us understand that the parables are not reporting real events, but are being used as a vehicle to make a point, we insist on reading the other parts of the Bible as factual history rather than embracing the poetic contradictions and mystery of the Semitic authors.
In a recent book, The Lost Art of Scripture, a British theologian and former nun, Karen Armstrong, writes, "Too many believers and nonbelievers alike now read these sacred texts in a doggedly literal manner that is quite different from the more inventive and mystical approach of premodern spirituality. Because its creation myths do not concur with recent scientific discoveries, militant atheists have condemned the Bible as a pack of lies, while Christian fundamentalists have developed a 'Creation Science' claiming the Book of Genesis is scientifically sound....Not surprisingly, all this has given Scripture a bad name."Since Scripture, even the New Testament, has its origins in an oral tradition passed from one generation to the next, we must know that we can't attach too much meaning to an individual word or sentence. I retell some of the stories my grandfather recounted, stories retold by my father. I can assure you both my father and I have embellished and reworked the details. The overall gist of the story is accurate, but it probably does not satisfy the standards of a modern historian.
Armstrong says, "A work of art, be it a novel, a poem, or a Scripture, must be read according to the laws of its genre." I recently watched and enjoyed a movie entitled The Irishman. Although the movie made frequent references to various conspiracy theories, I did not come away believing that those things were true. I knew I was watching a movie and did not expect documentary accuracy. What I did come away with was the story of an old, conflicted man looking back at his life and attempting to make some sense of it. When I read Scripture, I am not looking for historical or scientific facts. I can find those things using Google.
Scripture may help one arrive at some sort of truth, but it is not historical or scientific truth.
The literal interpretation of Scripture is an abuse of Scripture.
In the interest of full disclosure: As is probably abundantly clear, I am neither a biblical scholar nor a theologian, but one not need be to approach, appreciate, and benefit from Scripture.
