What are good contextual clues that a passage is meant to be read as hyperbole?

Question

Today in conversation with an atheist we ran into trouble over this passage in Matthew:

Mathew 18:9 (ESV)
And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire.

He seemed to be of the idea that the Scripture could be read either literally word for word from beginning to end or just as poetry or allegory, but that you couldn't pick and choose. I think a sound understanding of each passage demands some attention to how the literary elements it contains so that we are reading it the way it was meant to be understood.

What kinds of clues do experts in hermeneutics apply when approaching a verse to determine whether what was meant in a case like this was hyperbole or a verbatim instruction or something else?

Answer 1

A literalistic reading of the aforementioned passage in Mathew teaches that under a certain circumstance, namely "your eye causes you to sin," one most poke out his or her own eye. A literary (non-literal) reading of the passage sees the usage of hyperbole and a vivid visual image to communicate the horrifying and traumatic nature of sin. The former reading is basically didactic, the latter reading sees a teaching that is implied and indirect.

“He seemed to be of the idea that the Scripture could be read either literally word for word from beginning to end or just as poetry or allegory”

The Bible clearly has didactic content, but it's unreasonable and certainly wrongheaded to reduce the Bible to a book about what a person should do and when. If the Bible was intended as such, it would have been written in legalese. The Bible contains narrative history, poetry, philosophy and law and is wrought with a pervasive tension between the literal meaning of its words and its literary effectiveness.

_{[In real life, many people are unable to appreciate nuance or tolerate complexity and are unable to see the power and effectiveness of tension, ambiguity and mystery in the human experience. No great literature is so simple that it can be packaged as either being literal or allegorical and that is what makes literature such a powerful and important medium of communication. The culture of bullet point summaries and bite sized content is antithetical to a deep appreciation of the Bible or any great art.]}

Usually intuition is sufficient to determine if a text was intended more for its literal content or for its literary content. For example, it's overwhelmingly evident that Mathew 18:9 should not be taken literally since:

• A literal rendering of the passage would be grossly inconsistent with much of scriptures
• The passage fails to be meaningful or informative when taken in its literal sense - "if your eye causes you to sin" is far to vague and ambiguous and “tearing out one's eye” is far to intense to have any practical import
• The added “and throw it away” contributes nothing to the literal obligation in the verse but is consistent with and complementary to its vivid and descriptive style
• The context in Mathew isn't legalistic at all

Not all cases are so clear cut (see this question) and these issues are taken seriously and are well debated within religious circles. Nevertheless, a precise and rich understanding of the Bible, like any other important text, can only come through experience, study, and a learned sensitivity to the thematic and philosophical content therein.

Answer 2

Hermeneutics: Scripture has two "senses": a literal (historical) and a spiritual (the message God is trying to get across to us). (See here for further explanation of this.) The Bible is completely true in both senses.

Literal: Jesus literally said that "if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away." This statement should be taken as an historical fact. (It is not just some life lesson that Matthew made up to teach us something.)

Now, what was God trying to get across to us by Jesus saying this? That's where we jump from "literal" to "spiritual".

Spiritual: If anything in your life causes you to sin, be ruthless about tearing it out of your life and casting it away from you. This is serious business. It is much better to lose things you value in this life than to go to Hell for eternity!

But does this apply to ripping your eyes out? Yes! It applies to everything! If your eye causes you to sin, rip it out!

Application: With that said, your actual, physical eye does not cause you to sin. It's just blood vessels and goo. What causes you to sin is your lust, etc. And it is that lust that needs to be ruthlessly ripped out of your life.

This is easy to see if you consider what would happen if you actually ripped your eyes out. Do you think you would suddenly stop lusting? Man... if it were that simple, I'd happily go blind!

Conclusion: The Bible is literally true, but the purpose behind it all is to convey spiritual truth. The truth in this case is that we must rid our lives of those things which cause us to stumble - even if it's something as precious to us as our own eyes. Unfortunately, it is not that simple; your eye is not the cause of your stumbling.