Allegorical Methods vs. Literal Methods

[thessalonian]

I was listening to a radio program on Saturday on Prot radio. This guy is a Dr. of Theology at a local university. He said some things about allegorical methods that left me scratching my head so I emailed him. I think he only dug the hole deeper. I have some thoughts (in fact I have a whole book going through my head right now) and would like to hear yours as well before I respond to him.
Here is my initial email to him.

Dear Mr. xxxxx,

. I have another issue with something you said
on xxx's program on Saturday. You will have to let me know and excuse
me if I misrepresent anything. Further I did only hear part of the show
so perhaps you clarified your position elsewhere.

Toward the end of the show you spoke about using Allegory with regard to
something in the book of Revelations. I think it was with regard to the
1000 year reign. You seemed to me to be saying that allegory was a bad
interpretive method and that if we allegorize where does it stop? A
good question from your perspective I agree. Not from mine. But let me
give you my thoughts first.

I went to a debate between Bod Dewaay (perhaps you know him) and another
Baptist pastor not too long ago. xxx I believe actually moderated it.
That debate was about end times things. It was billed by KKMS as a
debate between someone who takes the Bible literally and someone who
takes it allegorically. I do not see how they could advertise a
scriptural debate, claiming to be scriptural experts, in this manner.
But in the debate there was a very interesting moment for me and
obviously for the Baptist pastor as well. The Baptist pastor (can't
recall his name) brought up the fact that Mr. Dewaay at times used
things in scripture allegorically. Mr. Deway had to admit this. I
think on further examination you will admit that you see some things
allegorically as well. In fact Peter in his first letter speaks in an
allegorical way with regard to Noah's Ark saving people through the
water and baptism. Paul speaks of Jesus with regard to the "Rock which
was Christ" that the Israelites drank from in the desert. Jesus spoke
in an allegorical sense of Jonah and the whale among other things.
Allegory was in fact a literary type of the Jews.

Now one might say, well Paul and Jesus and Peter made explicit all of
the allegory in the NT. I find this unlikely since it is quite apparent
that there are other things that can be seen allegorically. I see no
reason why the Israelites trip through the desert cannot be allegorical
for our trip through life, ending in the promised land, which is??? I
believe that the quail given to the Israelites in the desert represents
God giving us over to our sins. I hardly think that Paul and Jesus
exhausted all the allegory which was a significant literary type of the
Jews. Further I thing there are things that are allegorical in the
book of revelations for instance. Do you really thing there is someone
in heaven "looking like a lamb slain" literally. Or is this an
allegorical representation of Christ?

Now to your question of where does the allegory end if we start using
allegory. Well I think if you will examine your interpretations
honestly you will see that you do in fact see allegory in scripture.
But to answer the question of where it stops I will present for your
contemplation a couple of verses:

2 Peter 1:20
But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of
one's own interpretation,
1 Timothy 3:15
but in case I am delayed, I write so that you will know how one ought to
conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the
living God, the pillar and support of the truth.

Matthew 16:18
"I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build
My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it."


Comments welcome.

Gerald



**********************************************************88
His response:

Hi Gerald,
Thanks for taking the time to write. As you know emailing is really not the
best way to carry on a discussion, but I will try and address some of the
matters you have raised. I was interested in a number of things you said, partly
because you sound more like a Calvinist than a Roman Catholic! Anyway, here are
a few thoughts.
First, on the matter of allegory.
I cannot, of course, comment on the credibility or the ability of the
debaters you referred to, so I do not know if the positions were represented well or
not. There is a major problem with allegorical interpretation and that is that
the interpreter really becomes the final authority and not the scriptures
themselves. When the scriptures are not approached according to normal patterns
of grammar then there are almost no safeguards for what a person can teach
from them. I believe in normal interpretation (I like that better than
"literal"). Normal interpretation simply allows language to be language and if we
assume that God is trying to communicate to man then it would seem that He (the
creator of language) would not try and baffle us with hidden and totally
incomprehensible meanings. Allegorical interpretation sets aside the plain, normal
sense in its search for deeper/more spiritual meanings. The beginning of this
approach in the church can be traced back to Origen who was deeply affected by
Greek thinking.
Normal interpretation obviously includes figures of speech because that is
part of language. So that when my wife tells me that she is "freezing" I take
that "normally", understanding that she feels very cold....but not that her
body temperature has dropped to 32 degrees. The examples you gave of "rock"
"lamb of God" etc. are simply figures of speech and we interpret them normally as
such. We do not deny the main point that Jesus Christ really was the sacrifice
for our sins. We understand that when John the Baptist pointed out the "lamb
of God" to some followers of his, they did not think of a white, wooly
creature down at the Jordan river. Normal interpretation includes metaphors,
figures of speech, etc. But allegorical interpretation basically disregards the
plain, literal sense of a passage to try and find some deeper, mystical or more
profound meaning. In your example of Israel in the desert.... My guess is that
you interpret that normally; that is, you believe that a literal nation
wandered in the wilderness of southern Palestine (or Edom or whatever designation
you might want to give to it) and finally crossed over the literal Jordan river
and occupied a literal land area west of the Jordan. If you want to see in
that story an illustration of the Christian life, then fine. But what you cannot
be sure of (and it unlikely that it is here) is that the author intended to
tell us about the Christian life. It is only allegorical interpretation if you
deny the literal event and hold to the idea that what was written in Numbers,
Joshua, etc. didn't actually happen but was written as a metaphor of the
Christian life. So I believe in figures of speech as part of literal/normal
interpretation, but those figures of speech are not arbitrary...I cannot make them
mean anything I want to, any more than I can disregard the common meaning of
"I'm freezing" when my wife says that and make it have my own meaning.
For example, and you mentioned the book of Revelation...it is filled with
metaphors. In fact, there are about 350 quotes or allusions back to the Old
Testament where almost all of the imagery comes from (for example, when chapter 11
speaks about the olive trees and the lampstands, a person cannot make that
mean whatever they want because the meaning is established in Zechariah 4). When
John used the word pictures and figures of speech in Revelation, he was not
making up new stuff...in that, most everything is found in the OT. People will
commonly say that the 1000 years of Rev. 20 is not to be taken literally but
allegorically because the numbers of Revelation are not literal. But is there
just cause for doing that? (See the attachment on numbers in the book of
Revelation).
If we walk away from normal interpretation in everyday life we would be
unable to communicate effectively with one another. It is the same with the
Scriptures. If we no not approach language with the normal rules of syntax and
grammar then we have very little guidelines except what "we think". People who
subscribe to allegorical interpretation (and are somewhat conservative) usually
allegorize just in the realm of prophecy. If they allegorized in the realm of
Theology Proper, Christology, etc. they would be total religious liberals. Just
think about how Roman Catholic theology approaches its view of God....Father,
Son and Holy Spirit. It arrives at a Trinity (or Triunity) because of normal
interpretation. If they employed allegorization to this doctrinal area then
they would probably end up with more of a Jehovah's Witness view ofGod.
Anyway, this will have to be it for now on the subject of interpretation.

********************************************************************

Now this one caught my eye first of all. How does non allegorical interprutatoin improve upon this?

"the interpreter really becomes the final authority and not the scriptures
themselves."

The other thing that he does not understand about Catholicism is that we are not looking to make up new doctrines with allegory for the doctrines we have were deposited "once for all" by the Apostles. Thus we do not change doctrine with allegory but support it and grow in understanding of it. I am interested in the fact that he did not address the Apostles and Jesus using allegorical methods of understanding the Old Testament.

Then of course he makes the mistake of thinking that allegorical rules out literal for a verse. It does not. The literal is first, then allegorical according to the CCC.

Your comments welcome.
This is going to be fun.

Edited January 12, 2005 by thessalonian

[thessalonian]

Comments? Anyone? Anyone?

[cathqat]

[quote name='thessalonian' date='Jan 11 2005, 09:39 PM'] The other thing that he does not understand about Catholicism is that we are not looking to make up new doctrines with allegory for the doctrines we have were deposited "once for all" by the Apostles. Thus we do not change doctrine with allegory but support it and grow in understanding of it. I am interested in the fact that he did not address the Apostles and Jesus using allegorical methods of understanding the Old Testament.

Then of course he makes the mistake of thinking that allegorical rules out literal for a verse. [/quote]
I highly recommend Jean Danielou's book [i]Sacramentum Futuri: Etudes Sur Les Origines De La Typologie Biblique[/i], known in English as [i]From Shadows to Reality: Studies in Biblical typology of the Fathers[/i]. He has an excellent section on distinguishing made-up allegorical readings (like those of Philo) from good allegorical readings (rooted in the literal sense), and he talks about allegorical/typological reading within Scripture itself (as when Peter sees the Ark of Noah forshadowing Baptism).

Get this from a library, though, if you can. Trying to get a used copy will probably cost $100 or more.

[Pennypacker11]

There is no such thing as purely 'literal' interpretation. First, translation itself is an interpretation and it can't be purely 'literal' (i.e. Word for word translations just don't work, especially from languages like Greek). Secondly, the New Testament (not to mention basically every Church Father) is filled with typological exegesis of the Old Testament. Finally, the Bible never command literal interpretation and in fact, as just noted, typological is used more.

Also, as you noted, rejecting non-allegorical/typological exegesis does not remove the charge of the interpreter being over scripture.