By Angus Harley

Basic features of literal comprehension


Definition

Some of you reading the phrase ‘literal comprehension’ will think of the Dispensational hermeneutical claim that we must interpret all of Scripture literally. ‘Literal comprehension’ is NOT that! Literal comprehension (LC) is reading any text, of any genre- again I say, any genre- and understanding its words at face value.[1]

Example

Let’s look at the poem, ‘Mary had a little lamb.’

‘Mary had a little lamb,

Its fleece was white as snow;

And everywhere that Mary went

The lamb was sure to go.’

Any child of 5 years who can read understands (comprehends) what this poem is saying. A 5yr old understands that it is not talking about ‘the Big Bad Wolf’, which is from a different children’s story. The child naturally understands that there is one person, called ‘Mary’, who has a little lamb, not a big one, who follows Mary everywhere, not just to some places. The child reads and understands the text ‘as is’, referring quite naturally to its ‘on-the-surface’ meaning.


LC applies to all genres

LC applies to all genres. It doesn’t matter what the genre is, LC is in play and is the first stage of comprehension. The above example of ‘Mary had a little lamb’ was a poem. That was its genre. If that poem were turned into historical narrative, it might say, ‘There was a girl called Mary who had a little lamb. The lamb was very white, and it followed Mary everywhere she went.’ Again, a 5yr old just as easily will comprehend those comments, even though they are in a different genre. No matter what the genre of a written text is, it never changes the basic literal comprehension of that text. 

Not a hermeneutic

Dispensational Theology and its ‘literal hermeneutic’ is an interpretive model or key for unlocking the meaning of the Scriptures. A literal hermeneutic puts the emphasis on a literal interpretation of any biblical text, not unless the text cannot bear that literal meaning- so the view goes. 

LC is not a hermeneutic; it is not an interpretive key. It is, rather, the basic exercise of comprehension that all must embark on to understand any text. 


Three simple biblical examples


1. Revelation 7:4-8

This text says:

“4 And I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred and forty-four thousand sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel:

5 from the tribe of Judah, twelve thousand were sealed, from the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand, from the tribe of Gad twelve thousand, 6 from the tribe of Asher twelve thousand, from the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand, from the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand, 7 from the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand, from the tribe of Levi twelve thousand, from the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand, 8 from the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand, from the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand, from the tribe of Benjamin, twelve thousand were sealed.”

I read very recently that the above text itself taught that there were 14 tribes. The writer was not saying that his theology allowed for a little bit of symbolism, and this symbolism permits him to think of 14 tribes. Quite the opposite. He was arguing that the actual text, its very wording, spoke of 14 tribes. 

Yet, anyone can see that the text refers to 12 tribes, each with 12,000 members. There are not more or less than 12 tribes; there are not more or less than 12,000 members in each tribe. The 12 tribes do not include the tribes of Dan and Ephraim.

Whether or not these tribes ought to be interpreted, at the level of genre, symbolically or literally makes no difference at this stage of comprehension, for if the reader cannot accept the wording of the text, that reader is in big trouble!

2. Luke 14:26 and Romans 9:12

I don’t know how many times I have read that God does not hate Esau, and that Jesus does not state that we must hate our father, mother, wife, children, and brothers and sisters. Yet, the texts are pretty straightforward and must be allowed to stand. Romans 9:6: God loved Jacob, and hated Esau. Luke 14:26: Jesus taught we must hate father, etc.. We don’t get to change the wording; it must remain! 

Now, the reader might, after accepting the wording, go on to interpret THAT WORDING to say that the type of ‘hatred’ Jesus has in mind is something different to what many today might think. Fine. However, to ignore the wording is to violate LC, the most basic form of literary understanding. 

3. ‘Predestination’ texts

I have read time and again, from the words of some Evangelicals, that predestination is wrong, and is not in the bible. Of course, predestination is used in the bible (Eph.1:5, 11). Even when these verses are pointed out to those folks, they re-read the verses in such a fashion that some still manage to ignore the wording itself!

Three slightly-more complicated examples

1. John 5:28-29

“28 Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, 29 and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.”

I have read an interpretation of vv28-29 that says that the righteous will be resurrected first, then a thousand years will transpire, and after it the wicked will then be resurrected.

Normally, folks call this type of interpretation a royal case of eisegesis- which is true enough. However, the error is, at heart, the most basic of all- rejection of LC. A straightforward, ‘as is’, reading (aka, ‘on-the surface’, prima facie) of the above text disallows positing two separate times for the resurrection of the dead from the tombs. For it is in the same “hour” that the good and evil will be resurrected from the dead. Also, it is said “all who are in the tombs will hear” Jesus’ “voice and come forth”. Put another way, the text ‘wants to be read’ as conveying one resurrection time, of two different types of people. It undermines the plain, on-the-surface, comprehension of the text to call for a thousand years, and to say that there are two different times for resurrection. 

2. Jeremiah 31:31-34

Various attempts are made to replace the word “new” with “renew” in Jeremiah 31:31-34. In fact, a few advocate- without really thinking it through- that Jeremiah has in mind a renewing type of new. Let’s read the text again:

“31 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, 32 not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. 33 “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. 34 They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

Once again, an ordinary person reading the text will naturally conclude that God removed one covenant- the old- to replace it with a new one. The same reader will naturally conclude that these covenants are not the same, “not like the covenant I made”. We have two completely distinct covenants, one which is old and discarded, the other which is new- completely new. How do we know? Because it is the opposite of ‘old’, and because it is “not like the covenant” originally made. So, even renewal is not an option. It is not old; it is not a renewal of the old; it is, as the text says, new.

3. Genesis 1:1-2

The infamous ‘Gap Theory’ posits that when God created all things, according to Genesis 1:1, that this creation was immediately messed up (usually by satan), and God had to re-do his creation. V2 is the start of the re-done creation. Supposedly, millions of years lay between the work of God in both versions of creation.

Here’s what Genesis 1:1-2 says:

“1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.”

The Gap Theory reads Genesis 1:1-2 as a form of a chronological sequence: God first created the heavens and earth; then, in time, this creation was messed up; then, later in time, God recreated the earth and heavens.

First and foremost, on the level of LC, the Gap Theory simply does not work as a chronological model. There is no mention of satan, or him attacking and destroying the earth. There is nothing said about millions of years. Nor is there any reference to recreation as such.

We could argue for a different form of a chronological model in vv1-2. For, it is more feasible to say that when God first created the heavens and the earth (v1), the earth started off as a kind of ‘blob’ of material (v2).

However, a closer look at the wider context obviates any form of a chronological sequence between vv1 and 2. How so?   It cannot be that v1 is the beginning of a chronological sequence, for we are told plainly in vv6-8 that it is at that point that God made the heavens, after the creation of light, and day and night, in vv3-5. In other words, God does not double-create the heavens: first in v1, and afterward again in vv6-8. It follows then that vv1-2 are not chronological stages. Rather, v1 is a summary of God’s act of creating everything, and then vv2ff. relate the actual process of God creating all things, even the earth and the heavens. 

  • Genesis 1:1 is a summary declaring God’s finished product of a created heavens and earth.
  • Genesis 1:2-31 is the explanation of how God, from scratch, completed the act of creating the earth and heavens. 

The above structure is the text ‘as it wants to be read’. 


Closing words

The value of LC is that it keeps us tied tightly to God’s Scriptures and their wording. It helps us to identify forms of eisegesis, and also reveals how so easy it is to fall away from the on-the-surface meaning of a text, for our theology can get in the way of LC. Remember, LC exists for all genres- all! It is not a hermeneutic; it is to read a text ‘as is’ and to thereby glean its meaning. Whether these words are afterward interpreted as historical narrative, poetic, figurative, apocalyptic, or as a letter, belongs to a different level again of understanding, one which is to do with genre and that builds on the first level- that of LC.

[1] In terms of comprehension of the biblical text, what is being referred to here is the basic English version of any text, not textual criticism, or interpreting the Hebrew and Greek texts of the bible. It is an ‘all things being equal’ model.