A former boss whose judgment I value deeply recently told me that he believes the Bible should be read literally. Coming from a family of Baptist ministers, I did not find the question unfamiliar.
Instead, I found myself thinking about the people who wrote those ancient words.
Many of the stories were recorded years after the events they describe. Some decades later. Some perhaps longer. The authors were not stenographers. They were human beings—remembering, interpreting, emphasizing, and, like all writers, trying to communicate something they believed mattered deeply.
That observation need not diminish the Bible. In some ways, it makes it more remarkable.
The Scriptures are not merely a collection of events. They are a record of humanity wrestling with God, with justice, with suffering, with hope, and with the stubborn question of how we ought to live. They contain history, poetry, prophecy, law, memory, metaphor, and mystery. They speak in many voices because life itself speaks in many voices.
I have never found it troubling that the authors brought their own perspectives to the page. How could they not? Inspiration need not erase personality. We all write through the lens of our own experience. Every historian chooses what to emphasize. Every witness remembers certain details and forgets others. Every writer hopes the reader will understand something important.
The greater question, at least for me, is not whether every passage is literal.
It is whether the wisdom survives the centuries.
And much of it plainly does.
Love your neighbor.
Care for the stranger.
Show mercy.
Seek justice.
Forgive.
Practice humility.
These truths do not become less meaningful because they arrived through human hands.
Indeed, perhaps that is the point.
Faith has always required interpretation. Every reader interprets, even those who believe they are reading literally. The choice of translation, the weighing of context, and the application of ancient words to modern life all require judgment. The act of reading is itself an act of interpretation.
So I find myself less interested in certainty than in understanding.
The Bible remains one of the most influential collections of spiritual writing in human history—a library of stories, wisdom, and reflection that has shaped civilizations and inspired countless acts of courage, compassion, and conscience.
Whether one approaches it as sacred history, divine revelation, literature, or some combination of all three, it continues to ask questions that remain surprisingly difficult to answer.
How should we treat one another?
What do we owe the vulnerable?
Can forgiveness overcome injury?
Can hope survive suffering?
Those questions feel as alive today as they did thousands of years ago.
Perhaps that enduring conversation is miracle enough.