How To Read the Bible as Neville Goddard: His Practical Approach

To understand Neville, we quite agree it is important to learn how to read the Bible as Neville Goddard himself. No book is ever more fascinating, more informing and more inspiring than the Bible. Yet no book is ever more difficult to comprehend. Now, William Blake asked Reverend Dr. Trusler about the Bible, ‘Why is the Bible more Entertaining and Instructive than any other book?’ Why do you and I think it is more entertaining and instructive than any other book?

Because it is written by wise men? The writers are probably the most common men of their times, and virtually no one knows the actual authors of the books, not unless you try to attribute the books to the titles and assume the names are of actual people.

So, you must have a whole lot of assumptions going on to say it is the greatest book because the men who wrote it are the wisest. Certainly, they are inspirationally wise! Blake answered, ‘Is it not because it is addressed to the Imagination, which is Spiritual Sensation, and only immediately to the Understanding or Reason?’ (See Neville Goddard, Spiritual Sensation) This is simply how to read the Bible as Neville Goddard did; see it addressed to the Imagination.

So, this book of books, and that is what the word literally means: book of books. This book of books is your biography. It is written all about humankind. The characters are personifications, states that the Spiritual Sensation alone could truly sense! Let us take some of the most important characters of this great book of books and see how the Bible itself considers their entire story.

How Does Neville Goddard Interpret the Bible?

So, we know Adam as the story goes. He is the first man. He was not the first man, but he Is the first man. His name is man or mankind, and the word Adam means ‘one ruddy’. Now, the ruddy one in the Bible is David, whose name means ‘beloved’.

David declares the decree which is eternal. He said, ‘I will declare the decree. Yahweh (I AM) has said unto me, “You are my Son; this day have I begotten you.”‘ So, Adam is the one ruddy, he is the one glory known as mankind, or the natural body (1 Cor. 15:40, 44). When he is ready to be raised in the heavenly body, he becomes the ruddy one who is the begotten of the LORD (I AM), David.

Now you ask, ‘Was Adam not a human being who lived 6500 years ago?’ I regard him not as men do but as the Bible itself does. So, how does an inspired writer of scripture regard Adam? ‘Adam was a type of the one who was to come.’ (Rom. 5:14) This writer who elsewhere says, ‘There is no other gospel but that which I preach,’ (Gal. 1:8) now says that ‘Adam was a type of Christ.’

Why would I regard him as a man who lived many years ago when he is referred to as a type (one of the types, actually). Adam was ‘a figure, representation, etc.’ Now, is it too difficult to accept that Adam was not a person but a type when that is how he was regarded by Paul? The difficulty is because of the weakness of the human soul to perceive these eternal states as personifications.

Or as Neville put it, ‘To see the characters of scripture as historical is to see truth tempered to the weakness of the human soul. They are not people such as you and I, but eternal states, attributes, and qualities of the individual.’ (Neville, The True Knowledge of God) Therefore, if we would interpret the Bible like this mystic, we must adopt how to read the Bible as Neville Goddard did. Before I show how another important character of scripture was considered, I would like to give an example.

Consider Alice in Wonderland. Now, the book was written by Lewis Carroll. Did you realise that the story of Alice is not historical, although WHEN the story was written by Lewis is historical? Lewis wrote it in 1865 historically, but Alice is not set in any 1865. Alice is actually eternal. She is an eternal idea. So that if Lewis did not write the story, another person could have written it if they entered into the idea or inspiration of Alice. Do you realise this?

Now, consider another character: Abraham. The gospel according to Matthew traced the genealogy of Jesus from Abraham, not Adam. Simply because Adam and Abraham are an expression of the same being. Did you realise the writer said in Romans 5 above, ‘Adam was A type.’ And there are more types. Well, Abraham is such a significant ‘person’ in the Bible. So, how was he regarded? Now, I am quoting from Galatians 4:22 and 24.

‘For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave-girl and one by the free woman… All this is allegorical; for the women represent two Covenants.’ (Weymouth translation)

The writer said, ‘All this is allegorical. The entire story of Abraham and his two sons, the two women who gave birth to them. All that story is allegorical? Don’t take my words for it, just ‘Search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life.’ When you do, would you not find that all this story is allegorical? is it plain now how to read the Bible as Neville Goddard did?

Reading the Bible with Your Imagination

So, the Bible is not written to address your reasoning mind, your understanding mind where you evaluate historical ideas. It is written to your imagination who is the author from the beginning. All the stories of the Bible are literally true, and are eternal states. This is the autobiography that you wrote in eternity. Here is where it must dawn upon us that no one truly knows the actual identity of the individual writers of the Bible.

Can a man write his own obituary? By the reasoning mind, is it possible for a man to write how he died and where he is buried or not buried? He can write his will, the plans he wishes to be fulfilled after his death. But no man can reasonably write his own obituary. Yet, Deuteronomy 34 is the obituary of Moses, the supposed writer of the first five books.

I only wish for you to see that the actual authors are not known and that you can only make a complete sense of this book when you look at it as a mystical drama, a spiritual drama that is unfolding in you. My desire for you is that you come to realise how literally true this is while you experience it in your own visions and dreams. For as we are told, ‘God makes himself known to man in visions and he speaks to a man in dreams.’ (Numbers 12:6)

So my friend, this is how to read the Bible as Neville Goddard also did.