“Hermeneutics is the science and art of Biblical interpretation.” So Bernard Ramm begins his helpful book on Bible interpretation. “It is a science,” he says, “because it is guided by rules within a system; and it is an art because the application of the rules is by skill, and not by mechanical imitation.”1 We need a system of interpretation for the Bible for at least a couple of reasons. The Bible is God’s word, and it does us no good to know that he has spoken without knowing what he said. Trying to read the Bible without a reliable system of interpretation risks confusing our own voices for the voice of God. This is what has led to all of the varieties of doctrines and denominations within the Christian church. To one degree or another, each has adopted an incorrect system or failed to apply the proper system with enough consistency and rigor. “The only way to clear the atmosphere, and to determine what is right and wrong, proper and improper, orthodox and heretical, is to give one’s self to a careful study of the science of Biblical hermeneutics.”2
After his introduction, Ramm gives a lengthy chapter to discussing the historical methods of interpretation. Early in church history the allegorical method became common. Ramm offers a helpful definition, saying, “Allegorical interpretation believes that beneath the letter or the obvious is the real meaning of the passage.”3 This literary device is interpreted easily enough when the author tells us plainly, or otherwise makes it clear, that he is using it. But as a general approach to interpreting the Bible, the allegorical method destroys any hope of finding objective meaning. One person sees the text pointing to a set of symbols, while another sees an entirely different symbolism. Who is qualified to tell whether one or both of these is out of bounds? Allegorical methods put a premium on the subjective and end up obscuring God’s words. “The only method of breaking an exegetical stalemate created by the use of the allegorical method is to return to the sober, proper and literal interpretation of the Scriptures.”4
Instead of an allegorical or spiritualizing method, Ramm advocates for a form of literal interpretation. This, too, has historical antecedents especially among Jewish interpreters. Some of these fell prey to hyperliteralism or letterism in which every aspect of the text is given enormous weight. The most extreme examples are notarikon, where words are treated as acronyms, gematria, where the letters of a word are assigned numerical value, and temurah, where letters are rearranged in order to create entirely new meaning. It is not uncommon for the argument against literal interpretation to identify it with letterism and dismiss it as extreme. But Ramm maintains the value of a literal hermeneutic while also arguing against hyperliteralism. He says, “In the exaltation of the very letters of Scripture the true meaning of Scripture was lost….Any exegesis will go astray which bogs itself down in trivialities and letterism.”5
So what does a sensible literalism look like? Ramm points to the method that developed in Antioch of Syria in the early centuries of the Christian church as an influential example. He explains that the Syrian Christians rejected the explicit allegorism that was common in North Africa. They believed that the Bible made two kinds of literal statements: plain-literal and figurative-literal. The former are simple prose without any figures of speech, while the latter contain figures. “‘The eye of the Lord is upon thee,’ would be a figurative-literal sentence,” says Ramm. “According to the Alexandrians [those arguing for an allegorical method] the literal meaning of this sentence would attribute an actual eye to God. But the Syrian school denied this to be the literal meaning of the sentence. The literal meaning is about God’s omniscience.”6
To interpret the Bible literally is to insist that its meaning is based on history and grammar.
This same kind of mischaracterization occurs today. For example, when John speaks in Revelation 20 about Satan being bound and cast into the abyss, modern-day proponents of spiritual or allegorical methods say a literal interpretation requires Satan to be bound with a physical chain, cast into a physical pit with no bottom, and covered by a physical lid for 1,000 years. But this is letterism, not literalism. The literal method sees the language of chain and abyss as descriptive of the complete restriction of Satan’s ability to deceive the nations, as John says plainly. John’s description is figurative-literal, not plain-literal, to use the categories of the Syrian school.
To interpret the Bible literally is to insist that its meaning is based on history and grammar, not the need to argue for or against a particular doctrinal position. This requires that the Old Testament events be historical, not symbolic or mythological. Ramm explains: “According to the allegorists, floating above the obvious historical meaning of the Old Testament events was another more spiritual or theological meaning. But according to the Syrians [literalists] the historical and the Messianic were blended together like woof and warp.”7 The Old Testament speaks prophetically of the coming Christ, and some of its figures and events are recognized as prefiguring some aspect of Jesus’ life and ministry. The richness of these revelations is seen only with the aid of the New Testament, when we take into account the progress of revelation from less to more complete. Ramm has more to say about this, and we will examine it next.
1Ramm, Bernard, Protestant Biblical Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1970), 1. Ramm was a key figure in “the new evangelicalism,” which was a mid-20th century reaction against the fundamentalist movement.
2Ibid., 4
3Ibid., 24
4Ibid., 31
5Ibid., 48. Emphasis original.
6Ibid., 49
7Ibid., 49-50
