Many readers have heard the old bromide in defense of literal Bible interpretation: “When the plain sense makes sense, seek no other sense.” It’s pithy. If you don’t think too much about it, it might even sound like it makes sense. It’s actually not very helpful.
Consider the word “water.” What does it “literally” mean? What exactly is its “plain sense”? Here are a few possibilities:
Noun:
• H2O (chemical compound)
• Body of water (“Look at all that water.”)
• Ocean
• Sea
• Lake
• Pond
• River
• Stream
• Creek
• Inlet
• Liquid drink (“I’d like some water.”)
• Hydration supply (“They turned off the water.”)
Verb:
• Irrigate (“Water the fields.”)
• Provide hydration (“He watered the cattle.”)
• Saliva (“My mouth watered.”)
• Tearing up (“His eyes watered.”)
Which one of these is the plainest of the plain? That’s the point. They’re all plain. What distinguishes them is context. Things get even more interesting when you move into metaphorical meanings for water, which can be exactly what context requires. “Water” can speak of a life source, purification, transformation, motion, or danger. The metaphors work because of the “literal” characteristics of water.
Biblical writers used words loaded with symbolic, abstract meanings that were well known in their culture. We miss all that when we insist words must mean what pops into our heads in our time and culture. What we ought to be trying to discern is what the biblical writers and their original readers were thinking, not what we’re thinking. What the “plain sense” is to us may not have been at all plain to them.