Back when I
was in seminary, being a literalist in the interpretation of
scripture, I was curious about those who practiced allegorical
interpretation. So I studied Augustine's view on the subject.
Needless to say, he said things that were concerning to me at the time, as well as things I supported.
Essentially, he said that it was okay to interpret
scripture allegorically as long as it ended up at the same destination
as a literal interpretation of scripture. Which, he believed, the
overarching destination all interpretation should end up at the
greatest commandment: that God loves us and we are to love God and each other.
Sounds good, doesn't it? The problem is it forces every bit of scripture into this one message, as good as it is.
So when one reads that God commanded the Israelites to
kill everyone, including the children, that doesn't fit the narrative
of a loving God. So Augustine needed to interpret that passage allegorically in order
to arrive at the "correct" message. See how this works?
I imagine I've got most of my readers nodding their head
by this point. Certainly it is a problem when we want to arrive at a
certain interpretation. A person is tempted to shoehorn scripture into a predefined narrative, often
interpreting any section of scripture whose literal interpretation he doesn't like, allegorically.
But we are just as guilty of this as Augustine?
What! Surely not!
First we should define when scripture is interpreted
allegorically. The answer is . . . when it is written allegorically. One
of the clearest examples is John 15, "I am the vine, you are the
branches" speech. Most everyone agrees that Jesus did not intend for us to take that series of metaphors literally.
But that is the problem: clarity. Some sections of
scripture are not clear which way they go. But what if that is more due
to a history of interpreting scripture a certain way than because the
text demands it? What if we have a end goal in mind that a scripture has to end up speaking about?
One example of that is "this is my body, this is
my blood" statement. From early on, this was interpreted literally.
Then around 1500 years later, the interpretation changed to be
allegorical. Why? Because the literal interpretation didn't fit the end
goal. "Certainly Jesus didn't mean it literally," we'll suggest.
And so the debate goes on. However, is the allegorical
being used because the literal meaning is unacceptable, or does the
text written to be interpreted allegorically?
If we have those examples, how many other
interpretations of scripture do we hold that we tend to interpret
allegorically when the literal is really what God meant? Could we be wrong about several parts of God's Word?
