Being a parent of young children means that I read a lot of children’s books. One character in these books that has fascinated me is Amelia Bedelia. Amelia Bedelia’s quirk is that she takes words at their most literal meaning. For example, she sprays the guest of honor at a baby shower with a hose because, after all, it is  a “shower”. Or, she is told to “prune” the hedges, and so she puts prunes on the hedges. It is both silly and fascinating to watch her inability to understand the basics of how language works.

Language is filled with metaphor (a statement which itself is a metaphor – language is not literally a container that can be “filled” with anything). Every word is a symbol, a sign pointing to a reality beyond the word itself. When I write or speak the word “book”, you do not think of the word “book” (a combination of the letters B-O-O-K), rather you imagine and think of a stack of papers bound together and covered with words. 

The challenge is that words are never as precise as we wish them to be. Every word has multiple meanings and can create different images and ideas depending on the context. The word “book” can refer to a phonebook, a textbook, a novel, or a diary. Or, it could be used to describe something like an opinion: “Joe Montana is the best quarterback of all time, in my book”. Sometimes the same phrase can have the opposite meaning in different contexts. For example, the words “clean room” could imply that a room is clean or that it is dirty. If the phrase is found on an advertisement for a motel, the words communicate that the advertised room is clean (whether or not the room is actually clean depends on the truthfulness of the communicator). But if the phrase “clean room” is found on a to-do list, then that same phrase communicates that the room in question is not clean and is in need of attention.

Amelia Bedelia is unable to understand these basic principles of language. She has no ability to understand the context in which words are used or the multiple layers of meaning and idiom that words and phrases may carry.

As easy as it is to laugh at Amelia’s blunders, she is an example of how many of us have been taught to read the Bible. I remember being told by a Sunday School teacher that “Either the whole Bible is literal or none of it is.” Many evangelicals argue for a “plain” and “literal” reading of the text. But this approach to reading the Bible is untenable. It shows a lack of understanding of how language works. It is to read the Bible as if we were Amelia Bedelia.

When we come to the Bible we need to understand that language includes metaphor and idiom. Not every word or phrase in the Bible needs to (or should) be taken literally. When the prophets speak of the moon turning to blood, this is not an instruction to start counting how many times the moon turns red. This is a poetic and prophetic way to speak of a large, cosmic event in the same way a news journalist might call a particular political development “earth shattering”. Many poor eschatologies have been developed simply because of the inability to understand metaphor and symbolic language.

It is important that we understand that the Bible is not so much a book as it is a library. Even Amelia Bedelia could tell that the Psalms are a different kind of book than Genesis. Paul’s letter to the Romans is a different kind of book than Revelation. We cannot read two different books that have two different styles and purposes through the same lens. Many books of the Bible (such as the Psalms and the prophets) are filled with poetry. Poetry communicates through metaphor and figures of speech. The worst way to read a poem is to read it “literally”. Likewise, what is a parable if not an extended metaphor? In Luke 15 when Jesus begins to tell us about a man who had two sons, we do not begin to ask: where did this take place? Where were they born? Did these men literally exist? 

Of course, there is the opposite extreme as well that trusts none of the Bible to be literal. Resurrection, for some, becomes nothing more than an image of new life rather than an event in history. The problem for theological liberals is not wholly different from that of fundamentalists. Both liberals and fundamentalists place themselves over and above the Bible, forcing the Bible to be what they want it to be, assuming they know what the Bible is trying to do before they even read it. 

But what if we stopped trying to outsmart the Bible and simply let it say what it wants to say? If it wants to speak in metaphor, let it speak in metaphor. If it wants to speak literally, let it speak literally. But let us at least give the scriptures the dignity of being able to use language how it wants to use language, not how we want it to be used.

Amelia Bedelia may be a great character for children’s stories, but she is a terrible teacher for how to read the Bible. You do not have to be a biblical scholar to read the Bible well. But having a higher level of reading comprehension than Amelia Bedelia is an attainable standard for most.