So-called biblical literalists find themselves in a strange double bind when it comes to the numerous Old Testament references to the common world-picture of the ancients. Such readers seek with all their hearts to believe whatever the Bible may say on any subject. But the challenge of believing Scripture where it speaks of unseen and unverifiable realities is one thing. The challenge of believing it when it says things contrary to massive amounts of irrefutable evidence is another. And in the case of biblical cosmological references, it is the second challenge they seem to be facing. Put briefly, the Bible seems to any casual reader to describe the earth as a flat disk afloat upon a vast cosmic ocean. The sky it represents as a solid dome with windows and gates, and as resting upon great pillars thrust up from below. The sun, moon, and stars appear to be set into the heavenly vault, to be smallish, and at no great distance from the earth. Very much ancient evidence both textual and archaeological, makes it clear that this is simply the common world-picture yielded by ancient natural philosophy, i.e., scientific speculation as yet unaided by observational technology such as we possess. Indeed, we should think the same thing were we in their place, for the world surely appears to be flat, albeit of variable altitude. The sky appears to enclose the flat vista on all sides and to descend to meet its edges in whatever direction one looks. Rain falls from the sky and water wells up from beneath. Such a view of the world is not the product of stupidity but rather of shrewd and careful observation. The unaided eye and mind could not be blamed for thinking this is what the world was like. And of course it was the very same human ingenuity that worked on the challenge of observational technology until such wonders were created, and our views of cosmology were revolutionized.

So where does the literalist stand? He is in the impossible position of trying to make the Bible the norm and source of his beliefs, on the one hand, and yet to keep the Bible seeming believable by the standards of modern knowledge on the other. He cannot bring himself to deny what modern instruments have shown to be the truth of cosmology, so he cannot believe the world looks as described in scripture, but neither can he bring himself to admit that the Bible is mistaken. So, in order to defend the literal truth of the Bible (the proposition that it describes things the way they are, whether things on earth or things in heaven), he must resort to non-literal reinterpretation of the cosmic-descriptive passages of the Bible. It is an odd form of “literalism”! What a choice! To take the Bible literally in all its statements? Or to read it literally where its authors seem to have expected to be taken literally? All biblical scholars face the same dilemma, though our choice is different: we are willing to read it literally but not to oblige ourselves to believe whatever it says. That way we feel we can afford to be honest in our discernment of what the text is saying. Fundamentalists may think we are risking terrible danger that way. But we would have to return the question to them: are you any better off twisting the text in the name of literalism? Because if you can do it here, on this subject, you can probably do it anywhere else you may sense you have to. Indeed, you probably already are.

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