Metaphorical or factual: How do we tell?

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Bradski said:
Can we?
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Are you referring specifically to biblical passages or in general? Different books and speakers of the Bible have different styles of expression. Sometimes a metaphor may underlie a fact or a passage may be interpreted according to more than one literary style.
 
meltzerboy said:
Are you referring specifically to biblical passages or in general? Different books and speakers of the Bible have different styles of expression. Sometimes a metaphor may underlie a fact or a passage may be interpreted according to more than one literary style.
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It is a question because some scholars take certain Biblical passages literally, whereas others will take them metaphorically or figuratively.
 
From the Catechism:

"III. THE HOLY SPIRIT, INTERPRETER OF SCRIPTURE

"109 In Sacred Scripture, God speaks to man in a human way. To interpret Scripture correctly, the reader must be attentive to what the human authors truly wanted to affirm, and to what God wanted to reveal to us by their words.75

"110 In order to discover the sacred authors’ intention, the reader must take into account the conditions of their time and culture, the literary genres in use at that time, and the modes of feeling, speaking and narrating then current. "For the fact is that truth is differently presented and expressed in the various types of historical writing, in prophetical and poetical texts, and in other forms of literary expression."76

"111 But since Sacred Scripture is inspired, there is another and no less important principle of correct interpretation, without which Scripture would remain a dead letter. "Sacred Scripture must be read and interpreted in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written."77

"The Second Vatican Council indicates three criteria for interpreting Scripture in accordance with the Spirit who inspired it.78

"112 1. Be especially attentive “to the content and unity of the whole Scripture”. Different as the books which compose it may be, Scripture is a unity by reason of the unity of God’s plan, of which Christ Jesus is the center and heart, open since his Passover.79
Code: 
The phrase "heart of Christ" can refer to Sacred Scripture, which makes known his heart, closed before the Passion, as the Scripture was obscure. But the Scripture has been opened since the Passion; since those who from then on have understood it, consider and discern in what way the prophecies must be interpreted.80
“113 2. Read the Scripture within “the living Tradition of the whole Church”. According to a saying of the Fathers, Sacred Scripture is written principally in the Church’s heart rather than in documents and records, for the Church carries in her Tradition the living memorial of God’s Word, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives her the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture (”. . . according to the spiritual meaning which the Spirit grants to the Church"81).

"114 3. Be attentive to the analogy of faith.82 By “analogy of faith” we mean the coherence of the truths of faith among themselves and within the whole plan of Revelation.

"The senses of Scripture

"115 According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.

"116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal."83

"117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God’s plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.
  1. The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ’s victory and also of Christian Baptism.84
  2. The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written “for our instruction”.85
  3. The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, “leading”). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.86
"118 A medieval couplet summarizes the significance of the four senses:
Code: 
The Letter speaks of deeds; Allegory to faith;
The Moral how to act; Anagogy our destiny.87
"119 "It is the task of exegetes to work, according to these rules, towards a better understanding and explanation of the meaning of Sacred Scripture in order that their research may help the Church to form a firmer judgement. For, of course, all that has been said about the manner of interpreting Scripture is ultimately subject to the judgement of the Church which exercises the divinely conferred commission and ministry of watching over and interpreting the Word of God."88
Code: 
But I would not believe in the Gospel, had not the authority of the Catholic Church already moved me.89"
Ed
 
Tomdstone said:
It is a question because some scholars take certain Biblical passages literally, whereas others will take them metaphorically or figuratively.
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As Ed has posted, there are what you might call ‘guidelines’ for interpreting scripture. If that is the case, shouldn’t it should be relatively straight forward for the church to declare what passages are and what passages are not metaphorical? After all, it’s an either/or case surely…

Tongue somewhat in cheek, why not print a copy of the bible with all the metaphorical passages in a different font?
 
Bradski said:
As Ed has posted, there are what you might call ‘guidelines’ for interpreting scripture. If that is the case, shouldn’t it should be relatively straight forward for the church to declare what passages are and what passages are not metaphorical? After all, it’s an either/or case surely…

Tongue somewhat in cheek, why not print a copy of the bible with all the metaphorical passages in a different font?
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I don’t know about the Church, but in Judaism it’s not always an either/or case. There are biblical passages which may have a plain meaning (literal) as well as a figurative meaning (metaphorical), or a didactic meaning (homiletic). There are also passages which have been interpreted in more than one literal or figurative sense. The Oral Law (Mishnah-Talmud), rabbinical commentaries (Gemara-Talmud), and sometimes the Kabbalah (the Zohar, in particular) are used to help interpret challenging biblical verses and apply them to modern culture.
 
Bradski said:
As Ed has posted, there are what you might call ‘guidelines’ for interpreting scripture. If that is the case, shouldn’t it should be relatively straight forward for the church to declare what passages are and what passages are not metaphorical? After all, it’s an either/or case surely…

Tongue somewhat in cheek, why not print a copy of the bible with all the metaphorical passages in a different font?
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A couple of verses come to mind:
Matthew 23:9 Call no man Father
Luke 14:26 You cannot be my disciple unless you hate your mother and father.
However, there are other verses which are contested in the sense that the Catholic Church gives one interpretation and Protestants and others give a different interpretation. For example, for Protestants, some of what is said in John is not taken literally, specifically, about the Eucharist.
 
I wonder about this alot too, I can just imagine some of the original authors of these books seeing how we have interpreted many verses, and screaming “NO NO, you are way off”.

Especially considering these are books written over 2000 yrs ago…how in the world can we be sure we have 100% of it completely accurate, I mean, LOTS of books written in the past century are often totally misunderstood.
 
The point is to grow in Christ.
Remember the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians: 13:1 If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. 13:2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing. 13:3 If I dole out all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don’t have love, it profits me nothing.
I know this is the Philosophy Forum, but don’t sweat it. Be good!
 
Bradski said:
… Tongue somewhat in cheek, why not print a copy of the bible with all the metaphorical passages in a different font?
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Taking this as a good question, the Bible largely gets very multi-layered. When it talks about widows and orphans for example, it is not only metaphorical but materially factual as well.
 
I am not sure why God would not want to speak in a clear and unambiguous manner.
For example:
Unless you hate your father or your mother, you cannot be my disciple.
Why not just say that you must honor and obey God above all earthly things?
or
Call no man father.
 
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