[Serious] Literal and Not Literal

[Belacqua]

The standards need to have been there since the Bible was written. 

No they don't. We are talking about standards used to interpret, not to write. 

For example, a normal standard of interpretation is something like: "does a literal interpretation of this sentence accord with the rest of what I hold to be true about Christianity?" That standard wasn't in the mind of the author of the Book of Job. It is a standard used by the reader. 

There are several methods used in Biblical Hermeneutics, and it seems that not all of them met that criterion. It is, therefore, logical to say that the basics of interpretation themselves can be considered arbitrary, since some of them were first used years after the Bible had been written. 

I wonder if you are using some non-standard meaning of the word "arbitrary." 

Just because a standard of interpretation was not in the mind of the author of Genesis, doesn't mean the person using it came up with it for no reason. To be arbitrary, it has to be a standard based on random choice or personal whim, rather than any reason or system. If the interpreter has more than random choice or personal whim, if he has a reason and a system, it is not arbitrary. 

What I find plausible is that the only valid reasons and/or system are that the standards were suggested by the Bible, or that those standards were being used before the Bible had been written, because, in this case, we can be sure enough that the Bible was meant to be understood according to those standards. 

People who use the standards you disapprove of in fact think that they were "suggested by the Bible." For example, Jesus taught in parables. Parables are not literal. Therefore, much of the teaching of the Bible is not meant to be literal. Therefore, we are justified in reading those sentences which are obviously silly if interpreted literally as parable, allegory, or provocation. 

Was this in the mind of the authors of Genesis? Not that formulation, exactly, because he lived before Christ. But he lived long after it was common for myths to express spiritual but not literal truth.

The Bible has a history, and, as I keep saying, the value of the texts may not depend at all on the original authors' intent, if that is even knowable. 

When Augustine used the Latin word translated as "literal," he didn't mean literal the way we mean it. By "literal" he meant "according to the original authors' intent -- following exactly what the original authors wanted to say." But he was very specific that in many cases this was unknowable, and in some others less valuable. 

Otherwise, it seems more like we are making up standards to make the Bible seem plausible.

Again, this is mind-reading. Attributing bad motivations to readers without actually knowing their intentions. 
Is it possible? Yes. Can we know they did that? No. Did many of them leave detailed written accounts of their standards of evaluation which didn't include "making it seem plausible"? Yes.

It could be thought that what you were trying to prove was that the mistakes in the Bible should have been interpreted differently using different methods of interpretation until finding a plausible meaning, and that the meaning finally found was probably the one meant by the authors, and, therefore, the Bible is correct. 

It could be thought that, if you wanted to do a mind-reading on me and tell me that what I know of myself is wrong. 

I'd rather stick with what I know: writers in ancient times were comfortable with many kinds of non-literal expression. It is historical and reasonable to think that many of the Bible's authors were comfortable with these means. It is historically accurate to say that from very early on, important people in the Church interpreted many parts non-literally. Jesus told his disciples not to interpret him literally, by using parables. Rather than go with mind-reading, I'll stick with these demonstrable facts. 

I have also said before on this thread that in many cases, there is not one correct meaning of a story or parable. The myth of the fall of Adam and Eve, for example, has been interpreted a thousand different ways, for different reasons, by people who didn't claim to replace or supersede the interpretations that went before. To claim that only one reading is the correct one would be dumbed-down fundamentalism.