Many people are fascinated with "mysterious" interpretation. Like finding deep secrets hidden inside the letters of the Bible. This has caused many erroneous interpretations because these interpretations are subjective. Subjective interpretation has no standard to evaluate its validity. It is interpreting the Bible in a way that others will not be able to find at all no matter how they study the verse itself. It is putting the meaning into the verse rather than finding the true meaning of the verse.
Therefore one of the most important guidelines to interpretation is to interpret literally. Literal interpretation does not mean reading the words and just doing what it says. Literal interpretation is taking the Bible at face value and reading it as a literature. Literal interpretation recognizes the differences between a historical narrative and a parable, or the difference between written laws and poetry.
In other words, literal interpretation is not just reading and doing, it is reading with common sense, because it takes in consideration the real form or style of the passage. Literal interpretation is what people do everyday, they differentiate between an instruction from the boss and a joke they hear from him or her, and they interpret them accordingly. Literal interpretation also requires analyzing the literary genre of the passage in the Bible. (Maier, 1994, 49)
Narrative is the largest type of literature in the Bible. Although some will question the historicity of biblical narratives that contains miracles, it is a must to know that biblical narratives are historical events; it means that they actually took place in time and space. People must interpret and see the meaning of the narratives as a part of the theme of the book. This is how a particular narrative can be read in its context, by treating smaller narrative as.....
