International Journal of Philosophy and Theology March 2014, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 45-58 ISSN: 2333-5750 (Print), 2333-5769 (Online) Copyright © The Author(s). 2014. All Rights Reserved. American Research Institute for Policy Development 42 Monticello Street, New York, NY 12701, USA. Phone: 1.347.757.4901 Website: www.aripd.org/ijpt Metaphorical Language and Polysemy of the Religious Texts Ioana Claudia Horea 1 and Cristian Dorin Horea 2 Abstract The current study undertook to compare two paradigms of interpretation, paralleling multiple senses in religious and literary texts and analyzing them through philosophical and semiological means. We pointed out features of sacred text interpretation in contrast with the way of depicting meanings involved in daily language, also employed in literary productions. We remarked that while the former paradigm is meant to lead to spiritual elevation, the latter is less capable of providing such experiences, unless with oriented and experienced readers. From the countless types of hermeneutics of religious texts, we chose literary hermeneutics to approach the Bible. Works of Paul Ricoeur and Northrop Frye are a must for such endeavor, as are the narrative criticism and the reader-response criticism. In pursuit of peculiarities that make Scripture reveal the sacred, we employed ideas of Jean Paul Sartre, Umberto E co, Mikhail Bakhtin and Mircea E liade to render the indeterminacy and polysemy related to the metaphors and parables. The study resulted in the conclusion that every interpretation of the Bible should consider its final goal: to alter the readers' being-in-the-world and provide them with a wide perspective of the numinous. Keywords: literature, religious texts, metaphor, parables, polysemy, hermeneutics 1. Literary Works vs. Religious Texts A common perspective of viewing both the literary and religious texts is that of reader-response criticism. 1 PhD, Department of International Business, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Oradea; 1 Universităţii Str., Room E119, Oradea, Bihor, Romania, Phone: +40730027302 E -mail: ihorea@ uoradea.ro , Fax: +40359816115. 2 PhD, Department of Physics, Faculty of Sciences, University of Oradea.