In Favor of “Literal +” Exegesis: Why the Literal Meaning is Not Enough
Matters of biblical interpretation are no small matter. And an essay of this nature necessarily simplifies many of the issues at hand. However, what follows is a streamlined case for a “literal +” approach to exegesis, an approach that gleans from the grammatical historical approach, but also does not ignore the rich tradition of prior exegetical approaches that found Christological, typological, eschatological, and, yes, even allegorical meaning in holy writ. This should not be an either-or, but a both-and proposition. Because Scripture is indeed God-breathed, finding multiple levels of meaning and discovering fractal patterns in Scripture should not be surprising, but expected. With a basic outline of patterns in the history of interpretation, we will find a long and rich tradition of “literal +” approaches—warts and all.
Patterns in the Early Church
In his much-discussed article “The Exegetical Elephant in the Room,” Concordia Seminary professor David Maxwell broadly compares modern and ancient approaches to exegesis:
If we imagine that the Bible is constructed the way we would write a book, then we are going to limit ourselves to large themes when we do figural interpretation. The church fathers, on the other hand, assume that the Scriptures are arranged more like fractals, where patterns can recur on any level of magnification. You would almost have to be God to write a book like that! But if you imagine that the Bible is constructed like that, then you could legitimately make connections between patterns, no matter what the level of granularity is.[i]
It seems fair to say that this approach of the early church does not emerge from nowhere, but from the NT itself. Christ not only proclaims himself the fulfillment of OT events and people, but also applies OT metaphors and themes to himself.[ii] Christ’s apostles follow this pattern in their interpretation of the OT.[iii] And so do the early fathers.
Irenaeus (ca. 125-202 AD), for example, viewed Scripture primarily through the lens of redemptive history and recapitulation: how Christ has summed up, repeated, fulfilled, and intensified all things in his life, death, and resurrection as the full and true God-Man.
We could also note Origen’s (ca. 185-253 AD) three levels of Scriptural meaning: historical, moral, and mystical. And Origen easily becomes exhibit A for those who warn against the dangers of modern higher-criticism or allegorizing Scripture. While there are valid critiques of Origen’s doctrine and methods, it is too simplistic to correlate his allegorical method to modern higher criticism. Bryan Litfin explains,
Origen receives a lot of criticism today because of his allegorical interpretive method. Many [conservative] Christians suppose he wanted to undermine the true meaning of the Bible. Nothing could be further from the truth. Origen was a man who loved the Scriptures immensely....Origen used allegory precisely because of his deep and abiding respect for the Word of God.[iv]
In other words, Origen’s allegorical method was not driven by a desire to demythologize Scripture or dismiss its historicity, but was an outworking and extension of his belief in biblical inspiration and truthfulness. Origen explains:
Let no one, however, entertain the suspicion that we do not believe any history in Scripture to be real…or that no precepts of the law are to be taken literally…or that we do not believe those predictions which were written of the Savior to have been fulfilled in a manner palpable to the senses; or that His commandments are not to be literally obeyed....For the passages which hold good in their historical acceptation are much more numerous than those which contain a purely spiritual meaning.[v]
It is also important to note that even Origen proposed three safeguards against allegory-gone-wild: 1) the rule of faith; 2) the Christological character of Scripture; and 3) the character of the exegete (that’s one worth pondering).[vi]
Origen has come to represent the Alexandrian school of interpretation, which is commonly pitted against the Antiochene school. But the differences between these two early schools weren’t necessarily centered on whether to read Scripture allegorically or literally. Diodore (d. 390 AD), a representative of the Antiochene school and teacher of John Chrysostom (347-407 AD), also found multiple levels of meaning in the text:
Scripture does not repudiate in any way the underlying prior history but ‘theorizes,’ that is, develops a higher vision (theoria) of other similar events in addition, without abrogating history….One thing is to be watched: theoria must never be understood as doing away with the underlying sense; it would then be no longer theoria but allegory. For whenever anything else is said apart from the foundational sense, we have not theoria but allegory. Even the apostle [Paul] did not discard history at any point, although he could introduce theoria and call it allegory.[vii]
At the very least, this shows us that a hard line between literal and figural exegesis did not exist in the early church. Even the supposed enemies of allegorical interpretation at Antioch are engaging in it in some form. This leads Darren Slade to summarize:
The Antiochenes did not approach the Bible more ‘literally’ than others. It is true that the Alexandrians developed a figural interpretation of many passages that the Antiochenes regarded as literal. Theologians can also acknowledge that Alexandrians tended toward philosophical and abstract interpretations while the Antiochenes often focused on Scripture’s moral implications….However, it is inaccurate to suggest that the patristic fathers adhered to a hermeneutical method that isolated biblical meanings solely to the text’s authorial intent through historical-grammatical readings. Their overt spiritualization of the text rules this out as a possibility.[viii]
Hans Boersma also points out that “most patristic scholars today do not distinguish sharply between typology and allegory….the distinction is largely useless—particularly because most definitions of the term ‘allegory’ are themselves arbitrary, boiling down to ‘If an interpretation strikes us (arbitrarily) as arbitrary, we’ll call it an allegory.’” Boersma’s point is a good one, and represents a tendency to allow allegory for me, but not for thee. Boersma continues: “In actual fact, all good allegorizing is typological; it always seeks Christ as the deeper meaning of the Scriptures. Both the antitype in typology and the spiritual meaning in allegory open up for us the new covenant reality (res) of Christ and his Church. Patristic exegesis, like Pauline exegesis, is a search for Christ.”[ix]
Much more could be said about specific church fathers or the intricacies of different schools of interpretation. However, what is clear is that common practice was to approach Scripture in a “literal +” fashion. Maxwell’s description of how the fathers interact with Scripture is apt: “First they deal with the text itself; then they deal with the spiritual meaning of the text.” Maxwell notes that the “kinds of interpretive moves they make are also quite varied. They might connect a word in the text to the same word in a different text and find some significance in the correspondence. They might connect a text in the Old Testament to a text in the New Testament. They might connect a feature of the text to some aspect of the church or sacraments or the Christian life.” Maxwell calls it “pattern recognition.”[x]
Here you can see why making stark distinctions between Alexandria and Antioch, or between allegorical and literal interpretation, just doesn’t cut it. Not only was the early church’s overall approach “literal +,” it was also centered on Christ. “Patristic exegesis was first and foremost Christological,” James Bushur writes. Christ’s life and work is the fulfillment of Scripture, and it is “precisely this conviction, that in Christ and His church the ‘end of the age’ has come, that governs patristic exegesis and makes it Christological and ecclesial.”[xi]
Patterns in the Middle Ages
Even before the fall of Rome, the fourfold approach to interpreting Scripture was emerging. It seems that the fourfold sense first appears in John Cassian (ca. 360-435 AD). As an example, Cassian theologized about Jerusalem as follows: “The one Jerusalem can be understood in four different ways, in the historical sense as the city of the Jews, in allegory as the Church of Christ, in anagoge as the heavenly city of God ‘which is the mother of us all’ (Gal. 4:26), in the tropological sense as the human soul.”[xii] In his work on Genesis, Augustine (354-430 AD) suggested a similar fourfold approach: “In all the sacred books, we should consider eternal truths that are taught, the facts that are narrated, the future events that are predicted, and the precepts or counsels that are given.”[xiii] As this approach to Scripture becomes dominant, it came to be solidified in the following form:
Literal – this is what happened; this is what Jesus said.
Typological – this is connected to the OT; this is connected to Christ.
Moral (Tropological) – this is how one should act in the present; the moral of the story.
Anagogical – this is the spiritual or eschatological meaning; future events of the last day.
A little medieval dictum captures the essence of the practice well:
The letter shows us what God and our fathers did
The allegory shows us where our faith is hid;
The moral meaning gives us the rule of daily life;
The anagogy shows us where we end our strife.[xiv]
Despite some of the significant interpretive errors that accumulate through the Middle Ages, Hugh of St. Victor (1096-1141 AD) still is highlighting the centrality of Scripture’s historical meaning as the basis for any further interpretation. He exclaims, “I wonder how some people dare to present themselves as scholars of allegory when they do not even know the first meaning of the letter. They say, ‘We read Scripture, but we do not read the letter. We do not care about the letter, for we teach allegory.’ How can we read Scripture and not read the letter? If we take away the letter, what is Scripture?”[xv] However, in practice, one wonders how much this held true. If Luther’s critiques are accurate, then allegorical interpretations were coming to obscure—or even contradict—Scripture’s plain sense.
Patterns in the Reformation
The Reformation brought a recovery of the plain sense of Scripture, its direct and clear meaning that provided comfort and assurance for the troubled conscience. Reading and understanding Scripture was not something reserved for mystics or doctors of theology who could decipher its deeper meaning; it was for every Christian. However, it is important to note that while the Reformers rejected the extremes of allegorical interpretation, they did not reject it en toto. As an example, we will trace Luther’s (1483-1546 AD) position, all the while acknowledging that Luther wrote so much and so freely that he may not have truly articulated a consistent position on the matter. It is clear that he certainly critiqued allegorizing. He writes,
When I was a monk, I was a master in the use of allegories. I allegorized everything. Afterwards through the Epistle to the Romans, I came to some knowledge of Christ. I recognized then that all allegories are nothing, that it’s not what Christ signifies but what Christ is that counts. Before I allegorized everything, even a chamber pot....Jerome and Origen contributed to the practice of searching only for allegories. God forgive them. In all of Origen there is not one word of Christ.[xvi]
Ouch. Harsh words for Origen. You’d think Luther never used allegories in his own work. He goes on to say:
When I was young...I dealt with allegories, tropologies, and analogies and did nothing but clever tricks with them. If somebody had them today, they’d be looked upon as rare relics. I know they’re nothing but rubbish. Now I’ve let them go, and this is my last and best art, to translate the Scriptures in their plain sense. The literal sense does it—in it there’s life, comfort, power, instruction, and skill. The other is tomfoolery, however brilliant the impression it makes.[xvii]
To be sure, Luther saw primacy in the plain sense of Scripture. But that frequently then led him to find additional levels of meaning, especially in relation to Christ, the gospel, and the sacraments. Luther employed figural interpretations—especially typology and finding sacramental acts of God throughout his Genesis commentary and in his sermons. In his Genesis commentary this more nuanced view emerges:
Allegories either must be avoided entirely or must be attended with the utmost discrimination and brought into harmony with the rule [of faith] in use by the apostles....Yet these remarks must not be understood to mean that we condemn all allegories indiscriminately, for we observe that both Christ and the apostles occasionally employ them. But they are such as are conformable to the faith, in accordance with the rule of Paul, who enjoins in Rom. 12:6 that prophecy or doctrine should be conformable to the faith. When we condemn allegories, we are speaking of those that are fabricated by one's own intellect and ingenuity, without the authority of Scripture. The others, which are made to agree with the analogy of the faith, not only embellish doctrine but also gives comfort to consciences….In order to comfort and strengthen our hearts, allegories must be directed towards the promises and toward the teaching of the faith.[xviii]
This excerpt is situated in Luther’s Genesis commentary, where he is setting the stage for an allegory of his own. Luther allegorizes the three doves after the flood (Gen 9): The first dove is the prophets/OT, the second dove is the NT, the third dove is the new kingdom/heaven. Allegory for me, but not for thee.
There had to be a guiding principle that provided guardrails for such interpretive work which allowed Luther to critique allegory on the one hand, but employ it with the other. And as Luther noted above, that standard is the “analogy of faith,” just as it was for the early fathers. David Scaer helps explain:
Yes, the Scriptures are thoroughly historical, but past events are presented within a theological Weltanschauung, which, for Luther, included a Creator who was intimately involved with His creation and who was therefore thoroughly incarnational and sacramental. Lutherans, following their theological father, expect to find an abundance of incarnational and sacramental references everywhere in the Bible.[xix]
Much more could be said on how the Reformation changed the Christian’s relationship to Scripture and the positive and negative effects that have resulted. But for our purposes here, we can note a significant narrowing of the use of allegory and figural interpretations, which seems to be driven in large part by a desire to focus on the clear message of the Gospel of Christ for sinners, and ease trouble consciences.
Patterns in Modernity
As the Reformation spread across Europe, no one could have foreseen what was on the horizon in the realm of Biblical interpretation. What had been unleashed during the Renaissance and Reformation now was taking some interesting turns in the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. If one truly wanted to know facts, one must employ science and reason. So much for religion or revelation. Truth was to be found through empirical observation or rational inquiry. Not from some ancient text or some miraculous figure who rose from the dead. Man had come of age. Man knew better now. Miracles don’t happen because we can’t replicate them in the lab. And this mindset began creeping in to how the Bible was treated. “Beginning with the Enlightenment,” James Bushur explains, “the reading of the Scriptures has been subjected to a scientific discipline, and above all else the scientific method has sought to eliminate the biases and prejudices of the scientist. At the heart of the Enlightenment was the conviction that the scientific method is the one and only way to a firm, unshakable, and secure truth.”[xx]
This also shifted the center of gravity for Scriptural interpretation from the church to the university. Bushur again:
If the authentic meaning of the Scriptures was to be discovered, then original texts had to be quarantined from the prejudices of the church's sacramental life and subjected to a more objective and scientific reading....The development of a scientific method by which ancient documents and cultures could be studied encouraged the study of the Bible apart from the church's sacramental life. The Bible was moved from the lectern, pulpit, and altar into the library and lecture hall of academia.[xxi]
At this point the church faced a crossroads of sorts: accept the presuppositions of the modernists and focus on Scripture’s figural and spiritual meaning, or double down on historical and literal interpretation. Modernist theologians attempted to “salvage” Scripture’s meaning by ceding ground on its miraculous, supernatural and historical claims, and focusing on the symbolic, metaphorical, or moral meaning of the text. Some even tried to create categories that insulated redemptive history from historical investigation and critical scrutiny. Many conservative Christians who held to the miraculous nature of the faith (fundamentalists likely being the most recognizable) focused their efforts on defending the literal/historical meaning of text.
But as a result, Bushur argues, both sides end up with a flattened, deflated text. I quote him at length:
The influence of the Enlightenment is revealed not only in the historical critic, but also in the fundamentalist, whose critique usually points to the naturalism of modernist readers as itself a prejudice producing a biased interpretation. In other words, it could be said that, for fundamentalists, the historical-critical reading is not ‘scientific’ enough. Despite their disagreements, historical-critical and fundamentalist readers share an important assumption. Seduced by the successes of the natural sciences, they both value the scientific method and seek to employ it in their reading of the Bible. Both seek to uncover an ‘objective truth’ that inheres in the material text – a truth independent of the reader and visible to anyone, whether pagan or Christian. For the fundamentalist, the objective truth is limited to the text itself and the historicity of the events it narrates. Such an objective, material, and historical truth can be defined and summarized by any reader regardless of personal faith. A relationship to the church or engagement with its tradition is no longer necessary to read and understand the Bible. Fundamentalists thus tend to restrict the inspiration of the Scriptures to the original author and the production of the text, while for the New Testament and the early fathers the doctrine of the Spirit's inspiration applied more broadly to both the production of the text and its reception in the church....For both critics and conservatives, the meaning of the text is confined to the past; meaning is located in the purity of the text's original production. The discovery of such an original meaning demands a reader with a blank slate, a reader emptied of biases who can let the original message speak for itself.[xxii]
Where to Now?
While by no means exhaustive, this essay has provided evidence that for most of church history, interpretive approaches to Scripture were what we might call “literal +” methods. The literal meaning was the starting point, but application and interpretation expanded from there. David Maxwell summarizes the key difference between pre-modern and modern forms of exegesis:
In the early church, the meaning of a text of Scripture is to be found in its role in the larger story of salvation, while in contemporary exegesis, the meaning of the text is to be found in the original intent of the human author as it was understood by the original readers in its historical context....Since the church fathers see the meaning of the text primarily in its place in the larger story of salvation, they are free to find patterns. Since the contemporary exegete finds the meaning of the text primarily in the original intent of the human author, the possibility for pattern recognition is much more limited.[xxiii]
This leaves us with several additional questions, and potential areas for thickening our approach to Scripture. I offer three areas for growth:
1. Avoid pitting literal and allegorical against each other.
It really is a false dichotomy to pit the literal versus the allegorical. Both can be done faithfully. And finding deep symbolic meaning in a passage or connecting it to Christ is not a sign of higher criticism. It is a sign of commitment to the inspiration and inerrancy of Scripture, which drives us to see both the historic as true and the symbolic as true. However, it is also true that allegory has risks. It can go off the rails, as Luther ably noted. Hence, we should follow the guidance of the ancient fathers and the Reformers in staying within the bounds of the rule of faith. As Brevard Childs puts it, allegory “functions within a rule of faith (its theoria in Greek terminology) as the language of faith that seeks to penetrate into the mystery of Christ’s presence.”[xxiv] Bryan Litfin explains how this played out in practice:
An interpreter’s conclusions had to be congruent with what the Christian church believed and taught….every interpreter must use the truths of the rule of Faith as the ‘elementary and foundational principles’….Thus the received teaching of the catholic community served as a boundary to exclude the allegorical fantasies of the gnostics and other heretics. There was a limit to what allegory could be made to say—and it was the orthodox Rule of Faith that set the limits.[xxv]
2. Five “Cs” for Interpretation
In thinking through what this might mean for the interpretive task, at risk of creating a technique or scientific method of my own, I tentatively suggest five “Cs” of interpretation not as a rigid method, but as part of our organic efforts to understand Scripture:
Context – What is the historical, cultural, and literary context of the passage/book?
Covenants – How does this passage fit into the rest of redemptive history?
Christ – How does this passage point to Christ/relate to Christ?
Creed – Does my interpretation of this passage stay within the bounds of the rule of faith?
Conversation – What has the church said about this passage throughout history?
3. Recover the Sacramental Nature of Scripture
It also is vital that we recover a sense of Scripture as sacramental. The text is not flat or dead. It is living and active. If the Scriptures are truly breathed out by God, Boersma argues, it is prudent “to approach the biblical text not only with historical questions in mind, but also with theological concerns about Christ and the church, about the individual believer and his or her life of faith, and about eternal life.”[xxvi]
This sacramental understanding of Scripture is buttressed and strengthened by keeping the connection between Scripture and the church strong. It is within the life of the church that the Scriptures are heard and interpreted faithfully, not by approaching them as isolated individuals, or by dissecting them in a university laboratory. Bushur explains that “the reading of the Bible was a liturgical act,” and that such reading “means that the God mysteriously present in the Eucharist is the God who has spoken, taught, and interacted with his people throughout history. The eucharistic gathering held together the church’s head and heart, her mystical experience and rational knowledge, her apostolic doctrine and life of prayer in one evangelical tradition.”[xxvii]
Conclusion
As noted in the introduction, this essay is by no means exhaustive. The study of Scriptural interpretation is a massive field where the making of books sees no end. My goal here was much more modest in mapping out basic trends in the history of interpretation which help us begin to grasp how anemic the modern approach to Scripture is. I’ve suggested three areas for growth, and many others could certainly be added to these three. But at the very least, my hope is that this whirlwind tour of the history of interpretation opens us to the depth of Scripture’s meaning and its sacramental character as expressed in the liturgical life of the church.
[i] David Maxwell, “The Exegetical Elephant in the Room,” Concordia Journal, 30
[ii] Just for a sampling, see: (John 5:39, Matthew 12:41-43, 13:18-23, Luke 24:27; 24:44).
[iii] For examples see: (Galatians 4:21-31, 1 Corinthians 9:9-10, 1 Corinthians 10:1-11, Romans 5:15-21.
[iv] Bryan Litfin, Getting to Know the Church Fathers (MI: Baker Books, 2016), 125.
[v] Origen, On First Principles, 4.19.
[vi] Bryan Litfin, Getting to Know the Church Fathers, 130-132.
[vii] Quoted in Karlfried Froelich, Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church, Sources of Early Christian Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 85-88.
[viii] Darren Slade, “Patristic Exegesis: The Myth of the Alexandria-Antiochene Schools of Interpretation,” Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry, Volume 1, Issue 2, Fall 2019, 172.
[ix] Hans Boersma, “No Method but Christ,” First Things, January 10, 2025.
[x] David Maxwell, “The Exegetical Elephant in the Room,” Concordia Journal, Volume 49:3, 19.
[xi] William Weinrich, “Patristic Exegesis as Ecclesial and Sacramental,” Concordia Theological Quarterly, Volume 64:1, 25-27.
[xii] John Cassian, Conferences, trans. Colm Luibheid (New York: Paulist Press, 1985), 160. Quoted in Pauline Viviano, “The Senses of Scripture,” https://www.usccb.org/resources/viviano-senses-scripture.pdf.
[xiii] St. Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, trans. John Hammond Taylor (New York: Newman Press, 1982), 19. Quoted in Viviano, “The Senses of Scripture.”
[xiv] Robert M. Grant, with David Tracy, A Short History of the Interpretation of the Bible, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 85. Quoted in Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation: The Weaving of a Sacramental Tapestry (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011), 148.
[xv] Hugh of St. Victor, On Sacred Scripture, 5.
[xvi] Martin Luther, LW 1967 54:46-47.
[xvii] Martin Luther, LW 1955 54:406.
[xviii] Martin Luther, LW 1960 2:150-156.
[xix] David Scaer, “Reformed Exegesis and Lutheran Sacraments: Worlds in Conflict,” Concordia Theological Quarterly, Volume 64:1, 18.
[xx] James Bushur, “Patristic Exegesis: Reading Scripture in the Eucharistic Gathering,” Concordia Theological Quarterly, Volume 74:3-4, 195-196.
[xxi] James Bushur, “Patristic Exegesis,” 197. Bushur also writes: “Miracles, supernatural events, authoritative doctrines, and mystical rituals were all victims of the historical critic's shucking of the Christian cob. For such modernist readers, the miraculous narrative of the Bible was merely a metaphor authored by an ancient, non-scientific, and superstitious humanity. The modernist reader sought to use scientific methods to trace metaphorical literature to the natural religious ‘feeling’ that lay within the consciousness of the author. Through the historical critical method, the reader sought to accomplish an ‘imaginative leap’ over the wall of ecclesial tradition into the mind of first-century authors hopelessly in bondage to unenlightened ways of thinking” (197-198).
[xxii] James Bushur, “Patristic Exegesis,” 198-199.
[xxiii] David Maxwell, “The Exegetical Elephant in the Room,” 16, 35.
[xxiv] Brevard Childs quoted in Jeffrey Pulse, Figuring Resurrection: Joseph as a Death and Resurrection Figure in the Old Testament and Second Temple Judaism (WA: Lexham Press, 2021), 23-24.
[xxv] Bryan Litfin, Getting to Know the Church Fathers, 130. William Weinrich echoes the same: “The creed is a summary of the prophetic and the apostolic Scriptures, and the prophetic and apostolic Scriptures are the canonical commentary on the creed. For this reason, the creed is a certain key for interpretation of the Scriptures. Moreover, the reality of baptism itself is a hermeneutical reality for understanding the Scriptures, for it is the reality of the death and resurrection of the incarnate Word for us, given to us by the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of Life. In baptism we enter ‘the end times’ and become ourselves that which the prophets foresaw and foretold.” William Weinrich, “Patristic Exegesis as Ecclesial and Sacramental,” 34.
[xxvi] Hans Boersma, Heavenly Participation: Weaving a Sacramental Tapestry (MI: Eerdmans, 2011), 148.
[xxvii] James Bushur, “Patristic Exegesis,” 199, 208. Bushur further notes: “The church's sacramental life allows the Bible to be heard within the economy of divine tradition. While the Scriptures can be studied by academia as an inert artifact of a dead past, the same Scriptures are heard by the baptized as the preaching of the Father that comes through the Son to be received in the Spirit. Thus, for the early church, the Eucharist thickened the meaning of the Bible, giving it a vertical and mystical dimension. On the horizontal level, the Scriptures were certainly historically true. For the church, however, the meaning of the Bible could not be flattened into mere objective facts about the past” (208).
Joshua Pauling is a classical educator, furnituremaker, and contributing writer at Salvo Magazine and Modern Reformation. He has written for FORMA, Classical Lutheran Education Journal, Front Porch Republic, LOGIA: A Journal of Lutheran Theology, Mere Orthodoxy, Merion West, Public Discourse, Quillette, The Lutheran Witness, Touchstone, among others. He studied at Messiah University, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Winthrop University. He is currently vicar at All Saints Lutheran Church (LCMS) in Charlotte, NC and is completing additional studies through Concordia Theological Seminary towards ordination. He and his wife Kristi have two children.