The impossibility of taking a biblical translation literally

Did Eve seduce Adam into eating the forbidden fruit? No. He’s there and also takes a bite. That’s it. So, why do biblical traditions read it as involving seduction? What does one do with this reading? It isn’t in the text. Genesis is wily and often has more meaning than expected on a first read, which is part of what makes it so profound.

We do not know what people mean when they say we should take the Bible literally. What does this mean when particular people have varied interpretations of the same phrases or misread the same phrase? Does the reader’s values project light on the page from which one sees the words? Does translating the book reflect the values of the translators reading their values into the text?

I know people who claim to take the two Bibles literally, but can’t read the Hebrew Scriptures in Biblical Hebrew or the Christian Scriptures in Ancient Greek, both books of books full of passages that are poetic, metaphorical, and even numerical, and with the Greek Christian Scriptures having no grammar or spaces between words. With all this, what could be meant by taking the Bibles literally in an English translation? Who is translating it, which often means deciphering the meaning, and why are they translating it? For whom are they translating it?

The Hebrew Scriptures contain roughly 8,600 words derived from 2,000 noun roots and 14,00 verb roots. Many words share the same root. Likewise, many words mean more than one thing. Adjectives function as nouns and adverbs. When we translate, we have to make word choices. For example, the Biblical Hebrew root for ritual sacrifice also means to go up. When Abraham goes up to Mount Moriah to sacrifice Isaac, how does one know in this context it means sacrifice instead of to go up? Perhaps it means both.

After Cain murders Abel, God proclaims, “your brother’s blood cries out to me.” However, the word for “to” likewise means “at.” Your brother’s blood cries out “at” me is a different understanding than your brother’s blood cries out “to” me. Using “at” suggests God may be to blame for Abel’s death. Tradition translates it as “to”. But in the Jewish oral Bible, The Talmud, the great Rabbi Yochanon asks what if we read it as “at.” It’s a delicate moment where he’s trying to raise the question as to whether God allowed for Abel’s murder. Another Rabbi (whose name is lost to history) responded to Rabbi Yochanon, explaining that reading “to” as “at” leads to much misunderstanding. The latter Rabbi showed that it cannot be “at” for various reasons, none of which are in the written Torah, but may be found in the principles of the Torah. Cain is responsible for murdering Abel. The text shows G-d holding Cain accountable.

English and other current languages are much more specific than Biblical Hebrew, which has no word for “is.” The language of the Hebrew Scriptures thereby disallows the equating of one thing with another. One cannot state, “G-d is love,” but may speak, “G-d loves.” One may not say, “G-d is my parent,” but may say, “I am parented by G-d.” In this way, what we have is not a subtractive text, but an expansive document. 20th century Jewish German philosopher Franz Rosenzweig explained that “is” shows us the reality of being whereas “and” is the hinge of interconnection, relations in which one does not reduce one to the other. “Is” is unmovingly definitive, reductive. This “is” that. “And” is a hinge, imminently resisting reductive, unmoving definitions: this “and” that.

When we read the Bible—or any story for that matter—what we bring to the reading informs what the passage means for us. The content doesn’t stand alone, but with the reader. The book “and” the reader come together to make meaning. The reader’s perspective informs the meaning of the verse, so what would it mean to take it literally? Does a person of the 21st century read the same passage differently than one in the 11th century? Both readings matter, they can’t be reduced to one another, but they can live with one another in a range of ways. Even if the words remain unchanged, what they mean is fluid, expansive when a reader reads from today instead of yesterday.

Consider the eighth Commandment, ‘don’t steal.’ Surely, something this straightforward remains the same, seemingly absolute for readers over the millennia. It seems clear when discussing lifting an item from a store, or another’s wallet out of their pocket, but what about when you find a twenty dollar bill on the ground in a crowded mall parking lot on Christmas Eve? Is it stealing if you take it? You didn’t earn it through work. The Bible doesn’t provide the answer for this matter. Before answering, is this a different case than, say, finding it on the floor of another’s house? If so, how is it different? Does the difference direct different actions on your part?

The Torah never mentions shopping malls and certainly not Christmas, yet what we have to wrestle with is how to apply that very law or principle. We should not steal, but to obey the Commandment we must figure out what stealing means in different contexts. To take the Bible literally in a scientific sense not only denies the life you give it and thus you, you deny the text which invariably lives in relation to you, the reader. With this in mind, what does it mean to take a document literally? Is it about truth or meaning? Perhaps both.

Meaning overwhelms truth in the sacred Scriptures. We often read Genesis 22, the binding of Isaac or the sacrifice as G-d testing Abraham’s faithfulness to G-d. But the word for ritual slaughter also means to go up. Perhaps G-d commanded them to go up and come back down. That is what happened. Isaac and Abraham went up and came down. Perhaps the test was not only one of faithfulness to G-d, but also Abraham’s understanding of creation and tomorrow. If Isaac is held hostage by Abraham’s tradition, killed by it, so to speak, nothing new will grow under the sun. Creation will stop and nothing new will emerge. Tomorrow will not be.

What did Abraham see when looking into Isaac’s face with a sacrificial blade held high? His son. A person. Tomorrow. At that moment an angel commands him to lower the blade. They come down, but not together. Why not together? The text doesn’t tell us. We may understand this in many ways. How do you understand it? What might this mean for you today?

In Genesis 22, like so many passages, the truth may hold many meanings. This is precisely what makes it so profound. The text can be continuously mined for meaning to this very day, not because it is merely true, but because the meanings we find within it reflect that we are always obligated to become a better person. After the test, we find Abraham creating a world for Isaac. He sends a messenger off to find Isaac’s partner, Rebecca. Isaac will create anew with Rebecca. We are creative creatures always in search of meaning to inform how to live. To limit meaning to some supposed literal truth impoverishes and injures the depth of the text.

Let’s go back to the Garden of Eden. Jews read two different creation stories of Adam and Eve in Genesis. One has Adam and Eve split from one person, and the other has Eve created out of Adam’s rib. Where Jews see two stories in the text, Christians read it as one. Christians also identify the snake in the garden of Eden as Satan, the hinderer. Jews only see a snake. Likewise, Christianity identifies Satan three times in the Hebrew Bible, where Jews only identify Satan twice. Why do they differ? And what meanings, if any, emerge from this difference?

One thing is clear. The story of Adam and Eve provides moral instructions for easily misled agents who sometimes miss the mark. They live the consequences of their choices as we too live the consequences of our own. Those choices are the result of deliberation which sometimes encounter perplexing conundrums. When we find ourselves unsure what we should do, how to continue to create the world we live in and leave for our children, we want to be able to turn to sacred texts for insight. For Adam and Eve, the experiential meaning of their lives may have changed after eating the forbidden fruit, but that they and we are obligated to more than oneself is biblically certain. And that Biblical certainty requires the sort of engagement that involves our relation with the text.

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Co-written with Dr. Steve Gimbel, the Bittenger Chair of philosophy at Gettysburg College. Gimbel is author of “Einstein‘s Jewish Science” a one time finalist for the national Jewish book award.