First, according to biblical scholar James Barr, virtually all Christians have failed to follow many of the laws and requirements enunciated in the Old Testament.īut the fact remains: in biblical interpretation, in the handling of purely theological assertions (as distinct from historical or the like), literality runs into difficulties because of consequent inner contradiction, and is thereby forced into some non-literal mode of understanding One further point that should be noted is that most Christians who claim to take the Bible literally do not realize that they actually do not do so. In fact, I will at times refer to the New Testament to buttress particular points being made, and to demonstrate that the New Testament suffers from similar challenges 1. Indeed, many of the points made in this paper apply to a variety of other texts too, not just the Bible.Īlthough I will be focusing on the Old Testament, the one book that is common to Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, the points I will make could just as well be made with the New Testament or the Koran. Similar to the biblical literalist, the constitutional strict constructionist fails to understand the very nature of words and language. Interestingly, we find the equivalent type of literalist claim made by those who label themselves strict constructionists of the United States Constitution. Furthermore, this paper will set forth three additional reasons why such a literalist claim probably should not be made even if it did not defy logic to make such a claim. This paper argues that there are at least five reasons why the claim that the Bible is to be taken literally defies logic or otherwise makes no sense, and why the literalists are in no position to claim that they have the only correct view of biblical teachings. This literalism has thus fostered intolerance towards others who hold different interpretations of the biblical texts. All other views are systematically condemned as wrong. Of concern, the belief in a literal reading leaves no room for competing beliefs or understandings of the Bible. Presumably many, if not most, literalists believe that we merely need to consult the Bible and then the solutions to the moral and other problems we face will be unambiguously revealed. This is, therefore, the position of tens of millions of Americans. IntroductionĪccording to a 2011 Gallup Poll, 30% of Americans believe that the Bible is the actual word of God and is to be taken literally (Jones, 2011). These include The Scientific Argument: the Bible contradicts modern science The Historical Argument: the Bible is historically inaccurate and The Moral Argument: the Bible violates contemporary moral standards. Furthermore, this paper sets forth three additional reasons why such a literalist claim probably should not be made even if it did not defy logic to make such a claim. In each of these five cases, there is no literal reading to be found. Fifth, there are sometimes two contrary versions of the same event, so if we take one literally then we cannot take the second one literally. Fourth, many of the Bible’s stories defy logic and our experiences of the world. Third, biblical rules have exceptions, and those exceptions are often not explicitly set forth. Second, if you are reading an English version of the Bible you are already dealing with the interpretations of the translator since the earliest Bibles were written in other languages. First, many words are imprecise and therefore require interpretation, especially to fill in gaps between general words and their application to specific situations. This paper argues that there are at least five reasons why the claim that the Bible is to be taken literally defies logic or otherwise makes no sense, and why literalists are in no position to claim that they have the only correct view of biblical teachings. There are at least five reasons why the claim that the Bible is to be taken literally defies logic or otherwise makes no sense.