Quora: Why do some folks interpret figurative scriptural stories literally?

Crossing the Red Sea (Exodus 13:17–14:29)

I’d have to say that people need meaning in their lives ( see Victor Frankel ) and some way to express what they (at least intuitively ) perceive as the ineffable if not transcendent in their lives. And so they embrace explanations that have no rational basis. How else can you explain why 2.2 billion people somehow believe that god was born to a virgin, lived as a human being, and then was killed?

I’m an “observant” Jew, i.e. follow the practices of the millennium-old Jewish tradition. If you ask me about stories in the Bible I’ll explain to you three things:

1. Torah (the Hebrew name for the first five books of the Jewish scripture) means “teaching.” The purpose of the Torah is not to teach astrophysics or even history. It is there to share with us lessons of moral and ethical guidance.
2. Two thousand years ago, Jewish sages explained (Talmud) that “Torah speaks in the language of men.” Try explaining particle physics to your great grandparents. For these “lessons on morality and ethics” to be understood and ultimately embraced by the people who read or heard them, they had to be something they not only understood but perhaps even more important, could identify with.
3. Truth is True. Although the purpose of the Torah is not to teach history or physics, if the Torah message is to be accepted as true, it cannot contradict reality. If the Biblical narrative says that something happened, then it happened. Sometimes archeologists discover evidence that the people and places mentioned in the Bible lived and existed. More often than not, the physical evidence is lost in the erosion and decay of the physical world — but lack of physical evidence does not mean it isn’t true, i.e. did not happen.

Getting back to the fundamental issue in your question, “Why do some folks interpret figurative scriptural stories literally?” I’d say (forgive me I do not mean to offend anyone) that they either do not have the imagination or intellectual capacity to see beyond the simple meaning of the text, to perceive its deeper meanings (see Pardes — Jewish exegesis) and of course the power of Herd mentality.

It isn’t easy to stand up one day and tell everyone around you, family, friends, community, that you no longer accept their simplistic understanding of a commonly revered and “sacred” precept.

וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יְהוָה֙ אֶל־אַבְרָ֔ם לֶךְ־לְךָ֛ מֵאַרְצְךָ֥ וּמִמּֽוֹלַדְתְּךָ֖ וּמִבֵּ֣ית אָבִ֑יךָ אֶל־הָאָ֖רֶץ אֲשֶׁ֥ר אַרְאֶֽךָּ׃

The LORD said to Abram, “Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you.
Genesis.12.1

So you have, as I see it, three possible options:

• So you either squash your inner doubts and delude yourself that men can be gods;
• You play along to get along paying lip service outwardly while inwardly you no longer believe;
• You decide that truth and personal intellectual integrity is more important than anything else. You either forge your own path to a more intellectually acceptable (to you) understanding or you or others with a different, in your eyes, a more satisfactory way of grappling with the issues of the ineffable.

I do not judge anyone about their decision. In my opinion, all three possibilities are understandable. I, despite the enormous cost to my family and myself, chose the third approach. I became an observant Jew.