The Loman Index of Biblical Interpretation: distinguishing between literal,symbolic and rejecting modes among 11 to 14 year olds

This paper proposes a new instrument designed to distinguish among three ways in which young adolescents respond to familiar passages from the New Testament, defined as literal acceptance, symbolic acceptance and rejection modes. The reliability and validity of this instrument, styled the Loman Index of Biblical Interpretation, was established on a sample of 3412 pupils between the ages of 11 and 14 years. In accordance with theoretical expectations, the findings demonstrated that Year 7 pupils tend to prefer literal acceptance more frequently than do Year 9 pupils, while Year 9 pupils are more likely than Year 7 pupils both to select the symbolic acceptance mode and to select the rejection mode.