Volume 6, Issue 4, October 1989
The Bible and Philosophy
James Barr
Pages 412-428
Literality
Although the concept of the literal is very widely used in the discussion of biblical interpretation, it has seldom been deeply analysed. “Conservative” understandings of the Bible are often thought of as literal, but it is equally true that “critical” views are built upon literality. In some relations, literality seems to imply physicality, in others to mean exactitude in the rendering of “spiritual” realities. In Christianity the relation of Christians to the laws of the Old Testament is a prime area of application of these categories. Are the silences of the Bible to be taken as “literally” as its words? And does literality give us access to intentions?