Quote:
Originally Posted by ZNPaaneah
Also, to quote OBW, you should not say something is there in the word that isn't there. I find nothing in the word that says we should "limit" our allegorizing.
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I have to presume that you are not saying that you use a literal interpretation of the whole of scripture to evidence that you don't have to use a literal interpretation of any of scripture. (Couldn't resist that one
) But it is true that scripture does not provide a stated limit to allegorizing. Actually, besides having some allegory revealed as such by certain writers, it makes no statement about it at all that I am aware of.
What I have been trying to say (and I think you get) is that loosely allegorizing almost anything can give hints, indications, even reasonable fillers. But the certainty as to meaning is always fuzzy unless the one providing the allegory gives its clear interpretation. And using allegory to create teachings that are not otherwise contained in scripture is quite troublesome. It seems to me that from what I can recall, the existing allegories, while creating impressions that clarify what is already directly said, do not break new ground. For example, the reference to Hagar and Sarah do not cause there to be something teachable that was not already there. There was a covenant. The child born to Hagar was not of the covenant. This is not really news. And using it to underscore something already on the table being discussed is the purpose for which it was mentioned. It was not used to state something about the present that was not already said and pretty well established.
But to do as Lee did and take many different passages and create meaning that is not there for the purpose of creating teaching that is not otherwise given anywhere directly is a problem. Lee was constantly reading into scripture and declaring it to have come out of scripture. In other words representing eisegesis as exegesis.
When we had our little back and forth concerning Jesse, I considered it to be somewhere in between these extremes, although more toward the side of what I consider safe allegorizing. (I know. Hard to tell at the time.) My only real complaint there was the appearance of a need to say that Jesse definitely did any specific thing when there is no record of it. Suggest away all day long and all is well. I'm sure that there will be times that it seems I don't apply my own "rules" very evenly. What you are missing is the labyrinth of stuff through which I view things. (In other words,
my colored glasses that I constantly try to say I do not have.)