Having to interpret the meaning is so much more convenient for maintaining the power of the priesthood.
What always amazes me is that for well more than 3'000 years people have developed complicated systems of rules for elucidating meaning from -- and erecting a literature of commentary around -- books which are supposedly divinely inspired, yet it's only been in the last 300 or so that they've made much of an attempt at all to elucidate meaning from -- and erect a literature of commentary around -- natural phenomena, which have equally been attributed to the same gods. That entire cultures would first search for divine inspiration in citation instead of creation is even more puzzling given that it doesn't take all that much experience in the world to note that nearly any fool with a spraycan may provide the finger that writes on walls, but the artificial tree remains science fiction.
-Dave
