Thanks for your reflections.

The matter of literal as opposed to allegorical/figurative is one of those battlegrounds where the casualties are frighteningly appalling and overly frequent because of “friendly fire.” It boggles me that folks so seldom take into account the fact that the Bible contains a virtual library of different genres (history, poetry, allegory, parable, gospel, etc.), each of which must be carefully and respectly read on its own terms and not any other.

That all Scripture is God-breathed is most clear; that we should flatten our reading of Scripture by ignoring the breathtaking variety of genres of the Bible is, quite simply, absurd.

I think the Bible translator and reformer William Tyndale put the hermeneutical task very well on this issue in his tract entitled, “The Obedience of a Christian Man” (1525):

“Thou shalt understand, therefore, that the Scripture hath but one sense, which is the literal sense. And that literal sense is the root and ground of all, and the anchor that never faileth, whereunto if thou cleave thou canst never err, or go out of the way. Neverthelater, the Scripture useth proverbs, similitudes, riddles, or allegories, as all other speeches do; but that which the proverb, similitude, riddle, or allegory signifieth is ever the literal sense which thou must seek out diligently.”

[The Works of the English Reformers: William Tyndale and John Frith, Thomas Russell, ed. (London: Ebenezer Palmer, 1831), volume 2:339]. [http://books.google.com/books?id=o1ssQGn1UvEC accessed May 4, 2009]

So, if I understand Tyndale right, if one does not attend most carefully to and take account of the genre of the portion of Scripture one is reading, one will NOT obtain the literal sense. To put it another way, Tyndale seems to be saying that one must go through the figure, as it were, to embrace the literal sense.

Tyndale was most wise and astute. But, sadly, you will recall that he himself became the victim of “unfriendly fire.” His final words were a prayer to heaven that God would be merciful to open up blind eyes.

…and so it goes.