In one infl uential study, Ronald Goldman presented three Bible stories
(Moses at the burning bush, Israel crossing the Red Sea, the temptations
of Jesus) to children and asked them to explain what was happening. 11 He
anticipated that there would be a mismatch between the child’s interpreta-
tion and a mature interpretation and, indeed, this is what he purported to
fi nd. One child at the concrete operational stage assumed that the burn-
ing bush continued to burn because God was behind it pouring petrol on
it. Children who had attained formal operational thinking were able to
understand the text symbolically and to attribute the ever-burning bush to
the eternal nature of God. Goldman’s conclusions rest on an assumption
that children would understand texts according to their mental stage and
that, because these biblical accounts were written by adults for adults, their
correct meanings were simply beyond the intellectual range of children.
These conclusions are diffi cult to sustain in the light of wide-ranging
critiques 12 of Goldman but, in any case, his work needs to be taken along-
side other explanations of children’s understanding of texts which make
use of different biblical translations as variables within the research pro-
cess. 13 It becomes apparent that at least some of the misunderstandings
children acquire result from misconstruing the meanings of words. And
beyond this, research into children’s understanding of metaphor needs
to be taken into account in conjunction with children’s understanding of
parable or allegory. 14 In the case of metaphor, a compressed comparison
occurs: Jesus is the “lamb of God;” God is the “rock of our salvation”
(John 1:29, Psalm 62:2). In the case of the lamb, readers need to under-
stand the sacrifi cial system that lies behind this metaphor and, in the case
of the rock, one needs to understand God and the rock share attributes
of solidity and immovability, and it is on these that the metaphor turns.
Parables are extended comparisons, though they make sense even with-
out the comparative element. One can read the story of the Unforgiving
Servant without understanding that the king represents God (Matt.
18.21–35). So parables are self-contained narratives that point to a reality
or another narrative that lies behind them. Allegories are more formalized
and may personify abstract ideas like truth and justice. The point here is
that the process of understanding functions at more than one level, and
this is a criticism of Goldman’s work. In his assumption that children can-
not understand biblical narratives because the reality these narratives are
intended to illustrate lies at an abstract level beyond their reach, he ignores
the point that stories can be understood for the events they describe with-
out having to map these events onto another meaning or reality. Indeed,
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