Biblical Interpretation

Jerry Coyne brought a piece by Karl Giberson about biblical interpretation to my attention.  The controversy is between the position that inaccurate statements in the Holy Bible show that it is not so holy after all (Dr. Coyne's possition) and that certain sections of the Bible are to be interpreted metaphorically (the position of Dr. Giberson).

Dr. Coyne correctly points out that anyone making the argument that certain sections of the Bible are metaphorical will want to be able to determine which sections should be interpreted in this manner and which should be taken as historical.  Dr. Giberson counters that the Bible is a collection of books, and hence metaphorical language in one book doesn't tell us anything about the historicity of another book in the collection.

This response, while true is incomplete as Dr. Giberson acknowledges near the end of the piece.

"Acknowledging that the Bible is a library doesn't do all the hard work for us, of course. But recognizing this at least lets us avoid the so-called slippery slope where a non-literal approach in one place somehow compromises a literal approach in another."

While this is far from a complete response, it is at least a partial one.  What it would protect the believer from would be concluding that the entire Bible is metaphorical and that God and Jesus are imaginary.  However, this doesn't go quite as far as Dr. Giberson seems to imply.  For example, the book of Luke traces the ancestry of Joseph, the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus.  Adam is said to be an ancestor of Joseph.  And yet if the story of Adam was metaphorical as Dr. Giberson contends, then this would be an example of a metaphorical language within the book of Luke.  Is the book of Luke to be interpreted as metaphor?

He points out that the names given for Adam and Eve mean "man" and "the living one".  So it might be that names like these provide us with a clue that the story is intended to be interpreted metaphorically.  Metaphorical language in the book of Genesis would provide us with reasons for doubting whether other stories contained in that book were to be interpreted literally.

We have many reasons to doubt a literal interpretation of the story of Noah and the flood.  As well as a paucity of geological evidence for such a cataclysmic event, that is supposed to have occurred 4,000 years ago, the genetic evidence just doesn't match up.  A wooden boat of the specified size would fall apart under normal conditions, not to mention the severe weather that such a vessel would have to withstand.

Genetic evidence against a literal interpretation of Noah and the flood is even more powerful than that against literal interpretation of Adam and Eve.  The existing genetic diversity is inconsistent with humans having passed through such a tight bottleneck either 4,000 or 6,000 years ago, and the closer we get to the present, the stronger the case.

However, since the Bible is to be interpreted as a library, metaphorical language in one book provides us with a clue that later parts of the same book may also be ahistorical.  The story of Noah and the flood appears in Genesis along with the story of Adam and Eve.  Thus by this technique we arrive at the correct conclusion that the story of Noah and the flood is not literally true.

I suspect that sincere believers will be interested in techniques that can provide us with clues that a particular passage of the Bible is literally true as well as techniques for determining that certain passages are to be interpreted as metaphor.  Otherwise they would not be secure in the knowledge that the entire religion was more than a metaphor.  Unfortunately Dr. Giberson provides no such assistance in his editorial.  What we are left with is the possibility that the entire books of Genesis and Luke may be metaphorical as well as any other books of the Bible that make reference to either Adam or Noah.