Should the Bible be interpreted as literal, poetic, metaphorical? This not only depends on which part of the bible you are talking about, but also who you ask. The Bible, both old and new testament, has stories in it of incredible cruelty. It describes a creator of our universe that is a fairly demon like fellow who I think that most people would have a hard time separating from the likes of Lucifer.

I believe if you went through on literal interpretations you would find that the Bible is highly inaccurate, not historically accurate, and a simply putrid example of morals and ethics that we as the human race should be using in today’s world. Richard Dawkins had a very good interpretation of Yahweh of the Old Testament when the Bible is interpreted literally:

“Arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” – Richard Dawkins

This may seem, on the surface, to be an overly dramatic interpretation, perhaps even an exaggeration. But it simply is not. If you interpret the Bible’s stories as true then you can justify every comment that is made in that quote. I am not trying to be purely insulting by using that quote, what I am trying to do here is to establish that the Bible is not something that the majority of believers interpret literally. The defense that is used against these descriptions is that the stories are not to be taken literally and are instead metaphorical, or poetic in nature.

I have a fundamental problem with this, and it’s who is doing the interpreting of what is and what is not literal. There are an enormous number of sects of Christianity. The last number that I heard was well over 2000 sects. That is well over 2000 official interpretations of Christianity’s view of the Bible alone. This does not even account for the many other sects of other religions that share the Old Testament. Additionally I think you will find that many members of the various sects of Christianity do not share all of the beliefs of their religion with the sect that they claim to belong to. Instead many will speak of a close personal relationship and a personal understanding of what Christianity is. This can further increase the interpretations of the same stories bringing that number likely up into the many thousands of different interpretations of the same piece of writing.

Why do these people and these many different sects of Christianity feel qualified to interpret which stories are metaphorical, which are literal, which are poetic, and which are not to be used at all? Leviticus is recognized by few but most sects of Christianity don’t acknowledge Leviticus. Many sects used to believe in Leviticus, but later changed their mind and reinterpreted God’s word.

Most of, if not all, stories of the Bible were at one time believed to be literal stories. Over the years many of the historical references have proven to be inaccurate. Many of the stories do not line up in history, or could not have happened based on the many other credible sources that we have at our disposal. These questions range from the description of Genesis as to how the world was created, to the historical accuracy of Jesus.

Many things have contributed to the changes in interpretation of the Bible over the years. Science has progressed and answered proved many things in the bible wrong including obvious things such as the world being older than 6000 years old and the world not being flat. Social values have changed dramatically over time so that people are in greater numbers seeing women as equals, which is not something the Bible appears to agree with, as well as slavery no longer being acceptable despite its advertised acceptance in the Bible. Homosexuality is slowly raising its recognition and acceptance levels in recent years. Varied numbers of sets have accepted all of or a number of the above social changes. But they have changed over time despite the fact that the Bible has not changed. This should make it clear as day that Christianity and the Bible are not the ones driving these social advancements but rather social advancements are forcing Christianity to reinterpret it’s writings to fit with the times as a means of survival.

This is where poetry and metaphor come into play. Whenever there is a disagreeable story according to the current social standards, the story is just reinterpreted or written off as metaphorical or poetic in nature to get a message across. In situations such as Genesis the stories are farfetched and extremely unlikely according to science so now many people and sects are claiming it as just metaphorical so that they don’t need to admit that the Bible is wrong.

When science and reason faces questions about its accuracy it evaluates the information and accepts corrections when they are proved necessary. Religion, in the face of inaccuracy, changes its story as a means of survival. As science and reason continue to push religion further back and answer questions that humans used to only have answers for from religion, religion has to reinvent its story since one of its fundamental views is its own infallibility.

Many fundamentalist sects of religion will only take on the literal interpretation of the Bible. This type of unquestioning faith in the Bible and its words is extremely dangerous, but deserves more respect than the constant changing and apparently organic translations of the Bible that most sects take on. I say this not because I have respect for fundamentalists but rather because they are going all-in. Moderate sects and interpretations are people who are reasonable enough to see that their religion is inaccurate and changing but want to continue to believe so they alter their religion rather to suit their needs rather than conforming to what is supposedly the word of their almighty creator and judge.

Fundamentalists see this as the word of their God and they do what they are told because that is what they believe is necessary to get into Heaven. If the Bible is accurate, very few people will end up in Heaven despite the fact that they are Christians because they have taken on their own interpretation and have ignored the word of God.

Humans have been choosing their own interpretation of the Bible for a long time; this is not a recent development. In the situation of Christianity we can look back to the Council of Nicaea and the other Ecumenical Councils as groups that got together to change the historic information, translations and interpretations. This should never be seen as anything more than humans affecting the interpretations of the Bible, deciding what they want to include meeting their needs as well as what to exclude that they felt contradicted what they wanted people to believe.

I find this all very important because the fact that all of this human written information, translation, and interpretation is used as the only reason to believe in their representation of God. The fact that there is no scientific or rational reason to believe in the existence of a God, I would think it would be important to people to retain the integrity of the one piece of work that they base their entire belief structure on. Clearly that isn’t the case, so why believe any of it? If you no longer believe that ‘all’ of the writing is the word of God, I don’t see why you would believe that any of it is the word of a God.

Perhaps the Bible should be seen as metaphorical and poetic. But if you’re going to look at in that light, why not look at all the contents of it in that light? Why pick and choose which parts are or are not? Why can Jesus, God, the miracles, the commandments, and all the other content purely be poetic or metaphorical for something else? Perhaps it’s all meant to represent nature itself. One thing is evident; people that believe in their interpretation of the Bible are making up their own faith and not following the Bible so they are likely doomed for the same fate as anyone who is not part of their sect / religion. And the people that are playing by all the rules and following it word for word are only following the words that other men have chosen for them. Pretty scary propositions no matter which way you look at it.