Beyond literalism: Unlocking the four layers of biblical interpretation

Learning from John Cassian and Moses de Leon's approaches to exegesis of the Bible

Welcome to the return of the Little Free Seminary. I might even call it, "the Little Free Seminary Reloaded"!

What was supposed to be a brief break when I got COVID in late October of last year became a half-year hiatus. I did not intend on ghosting you all of a sudden after I had just started the Little Free Seminary. One of the issues I still need to resolve is: What should I do with the podcast? Spotify will be phasing out the Podcasters (originally called Anchor) app, which made it possible to put on a podcast with only a smartphone. I might explore several options and play with them for now, but I simply do not have time, spoons, or budget to do anything elaborate.

The other thing that's happening in my life is that I am close to completing my ministry education.

A lot of things that are happening right now in this world weigh me down with concerns and anxieties: The U.S. elections, the continuing wars and instabilities in many parts of the world, the rise of nationalism and hate-driven movements at home and abroad, and closer to home, economic injustices and housing crisis. I try to transform my worries into prayer burdens, but that isn't always easy.

Illustration by StockCake (AI-generated). Public domain.

In today's Little Free Seminary, let's discuss four different ways in which the Bible was interpreted.

The Bible has been one of the most ubiquitous books in the world. Maybe you have one lying around somewhere in your house. But relatively few people bother to read it. According to the American Bible Society's survey, only 18 percent of Americans "actively engage" with the scriptures. Even among those who do, many rely on devotionals or thematic Bible studies; in other words, very few read the Bible on their own. 

Many Protestant Christians, especially the Evangelicals, claim that they are "Bible-believers" and they take the Bible literally. To them, answers to any questions of life go like, "the Bible says so, and that settles it." 

But looking through the history of Christianity, and certainly through the history of Judaism, that has never been the only way to read and understand the Bible. 

In today's Little Free Seminary Reloaded, we dive into four layers of understanding the Bible. 

The idea that the Bible can be understood literally by simply reading it, one of the cornerstones of today's "Bible-believing" Christians, originated in the Protestant Reformation. Before the Reformation, the Church and its leaders were the sole authorities of interpreting the scriptures. The ordinary laypersons were forbidden from reading the Bible. With the Reformation combined with Gutenberg's invention of the printing press, along with the rising anticlerical sentiment (opposition to the ordained clergy of the Catholic Church), the Bible was translated into common languages such as German and English and made available to the public (albeit it was still prohibitively expensive for most people). The Reformation thus began the trajectory of democratizing the Holy Scriptures. In the following centuries, many non-profit Bible societies were established to translate, publish, and distribute the Bible worldwide to make the book more accessible. Today, you can even buy a paperback King James Version at a dollar store, or even better, download a free Bible app. 

This democratization of the Bible, however, came with some side effects. For one, it has led to an endless chain of schisms within Protestantism. There are now tens of thousands of Protestant denominations and many more independent and nondenominational churches. Along with it, many questionable cults have risen, some of them abusive, greedy, and even deadly.  

Most Evangelical Protestants claim that the Bible is inerrant or infallible and that it is the final and authoritative source of the truth. Yet, even they do not always take the Bible literally. For example, Matthew 18:22 is rarely understood to mean that we have to take out a counter and keep forgiving others until it is 490th time. Another example is the 144,000 sealed servants of God in Revelation (7:4-8 and 14:1). Aside from the Jehovah's Witnesses, few believe that only 144,000 go to heaven. Most Evangelicals would argue that the ritual purity code of the Torah (such as kosher dietary restrictions) is a set of prefigurative symbols pointing to Christ, and is therefore not binding on them.  

Before we go further, I'd like to introduce you to three keywords: Hermeneutics, exegesis, and eisegesis. 

Hermeneutics is a set of rules on how to interpret literature. Biblical hermeneutics, therefore, establishes rules on how to methodically interpret the content of the Bible. Among others, the hermeneutics of the Bible is aided by studying its contexts, such as the author and audience, contemporary historical events, and literary genre utilized (for example, poetry and prose). 

Exegesis is the application of hermeneutics in "drawing out" the underlying messages and meanings of the biblical texts. The opposite of exegesis is eisegesis, which means reading one's own agenda into the Bible verses to support their own position. While this is generally frowned upon, most Christians are guilty of eisegesis. Unfortunately, the Bible is a complex set of texts and anyone can take isolated Bible passages to reach wild conclusions. 

Traditionally, theologians understood the Bible as literature to be interpreted in four different layers.  

John Cassian was a monastic who lived in Europe between 360 CE and 435 CE. He was known mostly for authoring books on monasticism, which later became an inspiration for the Rule of St. Benedict. In the eighth chapter of John Cassian's book Conferences entitled "Of Spiritual Knowledge," he divides the interpretation of the Bible into two kinds: (1) Historical and literal interpretation, and (2) Spiritual interpretation. The latter is further divided into three: (A) Tropological or moral interpretation, (B) Allegorical interpretation, and (C) Anagogical or mystical interpretation.  

In the 13th century, a Spanish Jewish rabbi named Moses de Leon (also known as Moshe ben Shem Tov) wrote a famous volume called Zohar. Zohar was the foundational text of Jewish mysticism better known as the Kabbalah. In this work, Moses de Leon presents four different layers of understanding the Bible, known by its Hebrew acronym "Pardes." 

Pardes is formed by the first letters of four words: Peshat, Remez, Drash, and Sod. 

Peshat refers to a surface reading of the biblical text understood through its direct and contextual meanings. 

Remez is the allegorical and symbolic layer of biblical interpretation. 

Drash is a way of interpreting the text by comparing it to a similar text elsewhere in the Bible or to other occurrences of a given word. 

Sod, the highest level of exegesis according to this rabbi, is an esoteric or mystical one, given through some kind of inspiration or direct revelation. 

The three spiritualized interpretative layers notwithstanding, these extended meanings do not contradict the base meaning at the level of Peshat. 

In short, both de Leon and Cassian taught that a given Bible verse or passage can and should be interpreted in a multilayered approach, which makes the scriptures "come alive." The scriptures were not, therefore, read and understood like technical writing or a news article. Yet, at the same time, they were not purely symbolic or mythological. Historical events and characters for the most part existed for real, and archeologists have proven the historicity of the Bible time and over again. 

Understanding the richness of exegetical traditions is a strong antidote to the overly simplistic and reductive biblical literalism that has become a mainstay of modern Evangelical Christianity; as well as a powerful challenge to the progressive Christians who may only look at the Bible as a set of "prophetic" spiritual teachings found among the dated writings replete with "problematic" themes. Learning these four levels of exegesis enriches and balances our engagement with the Bible, regardless of how much belief we might place in it.

Announcement: The new discussion forum is open! Let's talk more about this topic. Also: If you have a favorite Bible passage, try interpreting it using either de Leon's or Cassian's four layers of exegesis, and share your interpretations on the forum! Join us at https://forums.infinitusministries.net

Illustration by StockCake (AI-generated). Public domain.

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Tomkins, S. (2011). How biblical literalism took root. The Guardian (2011, Feb 21).

Caplan, H (1929). The four senses of scriptural interpretation and medieval theory of preaching. Speculum 4:3 (1929, Jul). DOI 10.2307/2849551. 

Hicks, M (2024). John Cassian's mystical pathway. TruthUnity. https://www.truthunity.net/people/john-cassian

Cassian, J. Conferences of John Cassian. Christian Classics Ethereal Library. https://ccel.org/ccel/cassian/conferences.html

Rabinowitz, L (1963). The Talmudic meaning of Peshat. Tradition: A Journal of Orthodox Thought 6:1 (1963). 

American Bible Society. State of the Bible 2024. https://sotb.research.bible/ 

Theopedia. Exegesis. https://www.theopedia.com/exegesis 

Theopedia. Eisegesis. https://www.theopedia.com/eisegesis 

Theopedia. Interpretation of the Bible. https://www.theopedia.com/interpretation-of-the-bible 

Hermeneutical approaches. StackExchange. https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/76/what-is-the-fourfold-sense-of-scripture