One way of attempting to pinpoint that latter distinction is to say that ‘spiritual’ interpretation is precisely that kind of interpretation which has to find the Bible useful, or tie it into the framework of already-known truth, whereas literal interpretation is precisely that kind of interpretation which pays attention to the ways in which the Bible resists use–the ways in which it is awkward, diverse, and difficult.
By following strange strands of subterranean connection that link this awkward text to others, the spiritual interpreter discovers multiple ways in which the text can be woven back into edification. The text’s strangeness, registered by literal reading, becomes a doorway to the questioning and recovery of what is already known, but it will be a recovery which drives the already-known more deeply into the reader–or the reader more deeply into the already-known. Leggi tutto “Classically, spiritual interpretation arises precisely when the reader encounters something awkward in the literal sense–paradigmatically, something that is not edifying”