Rabbi Saadia Gaon:The 4 Situations We Don't Use the Most Literal Interpretation

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http://www.vilnagaon.org/book/Science-Bible.html

Where Do We Draw the Line Concerning What Portions of the Bible Should Be Taken Literally and Which Portions are to Be More Loosely Interpreted?

Rabbi Saadia Gaon (born in Jewish year 4642 or  secular year 882) , who is most famous for defending Judaism against the breakaway Karaite sect, wrote an article in his book, Emunot Ve'deot defending the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. In that article, he provides the four situations, where we don't interpret the Bible according to the most literal meaning of the words. Outside these four situations we do.

The first of these four situations, is when the Bible says something that we know from observation that it can not be taken literally. The example, he gives is the Biblical verse in Breishit/Genesis 3:20 "And the man called his wife's name, Chava (Eve) because she was the mother of all that live". Rabbi Saadia Gaon comments that we know from observation that she was not the mother of oxen and donkeys. Therefore the term "all that live" has to be understood not in accordance to a literal translation of the words.

The second of these four situations, is if the Bible says something that we know on an intellectual level that it can not be true, if taken literally. The third of these four situations is when we have a clear rabbinical tradition, not to interpret the text literally and the fourth of these four situations is when two verses say contradictory statements, then we reinterpret the more ambiguous verse in light of the verse that makes a more uncompromising statement. For more details about situations 2 -4, see Maamar/article 7 in Emunot Ve'deot.

See the article in depth for a discussion of how to interpret Biblical verses in light of firm and I stress firm scientific evidence.