[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[Belacqua]

any statement can be understood arbitrarily since there is no standard—that is, there are no obvious meanings.

There are standards. There is a framework and a history and there are recognized people who have influenced the field. 

The fact that it is a long and complicated history, that people still disagree, that some people do it badly, does not mean that the whole thing is arbitrary. 

It seems that the main point I need to make is: it is good for us to know what we're talking about. If a poorly-informed Christian says that everything in the Bible was always meant literally, he is wrong. If a poorly-informed anti-religion type says that all Christians believe in talking snakes, he is wrong.

I need to look up the history of Biblical Hermeneutics regarding when exactly it was first used, where it was being used and its evolution.

Hermeneutics means interpretation, which means that there is something to interpret first, and then people read it carefully. The field grew up over centuries, and is one of the reasons that our tradition has a very rich way of reading texts. Modern secular hermeneutics owes a great deal to its religious forebears.

Like all fields, it didn't appear out of nothing. Ways of writing and reading that far predate the writing of the Gospels or the final assembly of the Bible used expressive tropes, and doing hermeneutics requires that a person know these. The many various authors of the Bible and other texts assume and demand that we will make a tiny bit of effort in reading them.

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Yes, but when texts are interpreted differently than was intended, it is not the author's wisdom, it is the interpreter's. 

Thank you, yes, that's what I've been saying. 

The author's intent may or may not be relevant, if we even know what it is. The richness of the text often comes from the many interpretations that have been offered after. 

I find William Blake's interpretation of the Book of Job to be very wonderful, and almost certainly at odds with the original author[s].

this does not prove that a god exists.

Who said anything about proving a god exists? Non sequiturs R us. 

As an atheist, I feel that we should read and write intelligently, that we have a duty to speak accurately even about our "enemies," and that it would be silly to reject the beauty and wisdom of European culture, even though I have different metaphysical views about the people who wrote it.