08.02.05tue
Taking The Bible Literally
The question is asked a lot, “is The Bible to be taken literally?” The Bible consists of 66 books, 1,189 chapters and over 31,000 verses. Humans communicate verbally through words in more than one way. One cannot expect that every word in The Bible should be taken literal, nor should one expect that none of the words should be taken literal.
If you read any piece of literature, you must use your own wisdom and judgement to determine which text is literal and which is figurative.
Some text is more obvious than others. For example, Matthew 5:29 says...
If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
Obviously, The Bible is not literally telling you to gouge out your own eye. Rather, it is making a point that it would be better to lose your eye than to spend an eternity in Hell.
Take the literal parts literally, the figurative parts figuratively, and use common sense, experience, knowledge of language and grammar, and the techniques of hermeneutics to know the difference. Just like you do any time you hear or read any statement by anyone about anything.
