There are two conflicting methods of interpreting Scripture: The grammatical-historical method and the allegorical method. The grammatical-historical method is the method Roy Zuck is teaching in the book of our review Basic Bible Interpretation. This method interprets Scripture in the normal sense of language.
The contrasting and conflicting method is the allegorical method. I say conflicting because as Roy Zuck highlights in chapter two where he traces the history of interpretation, “the reformation was a time of social and ecclesiastical upheaval but as Ramm points out, it was basically a hermeneutical reformation, a reformation in reference to the approach to the Bible.”[1]
I say contrasting because the allegorical method of interpretation does not take language in the normal sense but as John Bright defines allegory: the allegorical interpreter finds “hidden, mystical meanings in the words of the text itself.”[2]
For example, concerning the first coming of Christ. The grammatical-historical method of interpretation takes the first coming prophecies of Christ literally i.e., Christ would be born in Bethlehem according to Micah 5:2. The allegorical method as well takes the first coming prophecies of Christ literally.
Concerning the second coming of Christ, however, the allegorical method does not take many of the prophecies in the normal sense of language. The grammatical-historical method of interpretation takes the second coming prophecies of Christ literally i.e., Christ will reign for 1000 years according to Rev. 20:1-7. The allegorical method does not take the second-coming prophecies literally. Covenant postmillennialist, Loraine Boettner, provides an example of allegorizing the millennial passage of Isaiah 11:6 which predicts that in the future kingdom,
The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb.” Here is how Boettner allegorizes this prophecy for Israel: “A fitting example of the wolf dwelling with the lamb is seen in the change that came over the vicious persecutor Saul of Tarsus, who was a wolf ravening and destroying, but who was so transformed by the Gospel of Christ that he became a lamb. After his conversion, he lost his hatred for the Christians and became instead their humble friend, confidant, and defender.[3]
Allegorization was a Greek idea that had been passed on to the Jews by Jewish philosophers who had been trained in Greek philosophy. The Greeks allegorized Homer’s writings to get rid of morally objectionable passages. Homer’s writings were esteemed sacred and necessary for moral training. Therefore, all morally offensive texts had to be allegorized. For example, Apollo, the god of the sun, was seen as immoral when he murdered men with his arrows. So to clear Homer of impropriety, those passages were allegorized. Edwin Hatch provides an example. “Apollo is the sun; the ‘far-darter’ is the sun sending forth his rays: when it is said that Apollo slew men with his arrows, it is meant that there was a pestilence in the heat of summertime.”[4] Jews trained in Greek philosophy used allegorization to remove the moral difficulties in their sacred book: the Old Testament.
Philo, (30 B.C.– 45 A.D.) the Greek-trained Alexandrian Jew and philosopher, took the Greek method of allegorization and interpreted the Old Testament. He entitled his work on Genesis: Allegories of the Sacred Law. According to Philo, the Old Testament passages had a literal or moral interpretation and a symbolical or hidden meaning. Because Origen had studied Greek methods of interpretation and Greek philosophers, he applied allegorization to Christian exegesis. Eusebius records that Origen learned from the books of Cornutus “the figurative interpretation, as employed in the Greek mysteries, and applied it to the Jewish writings.”[5] Origen defines his system of interpretation in his On First Principles, which was “a comprehensive investigation of Christian doctrine on a scale never before attempted.”[6] Origen describes his three bases of interpretation: “Just as man, therefore, is said to consist of body, soul, and spirit, so also does the Holy Scripture, which has been bestowed by the divine bounty for man’s salvation.”[7] The body of Scripture is the literal interpretation, the soul is for those who have made some spiritual progress, and the spirit of Scripture, which is allegorization, is for the spiritually mature. So by implication, the literal interpretation is for the spiritually immature. An example of Origen’s allegorization is his famous interpretation of the Good Samaritan in a homily he preached on Luke 10. Origen in Homily 34 actually refers to the interpretation of an unnamed elder which he approves.
One of the elders wanted to interpret the parable as follows. The man who was going down is Adam. Jerusalem is paradise, and Jericho is the world. The robbers are hostile powers. The priest is the Law, the Levite is the prophets, and the Samaritan is Christ. The wounds are disobedience, the beast is . . . the Church. And further, the two denarrii mean the Father and the Son. The manager of the stable is the head of the Church, to whom its care has been entrusted. And the fact that the Samaritan promises he will return represents the Savior’s second coming. All of this has been said reasonably and beautifully.[8]
John Broadus, in his classic on preaching, accurately assesses the impact of Origen: “In this way he injured preaching.”[9]
[1] Zuck, Roy. Basic Bible Interpretation (Wheaton, IL: Victor, 1991), 44.
[2] John Bright, The Authority of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1967), 79.
[3] Loraine Boettner, “Postmillennialism, in The Meaning of the Millennium: Four Views, ed. Robert G. Clouse (Downers Grove, Il. InterVarsity Press, 1977), 90.
[4] Edwin Hatch, The Influence of Greek Ideas on Christianity (New York: Harper, 1957), 62.
[5] Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, trans. Kirsopp Lake vol. 2, (London: Heinemann, 1926), 59.
[6] Origen, On First Principles, trans. G. W. Butterworth (Gloucester: Peter Smith, 1973), xxiv.
[7] Ibid., 276.
[8] Ibid., 138.
[9] John Broadus. (1893) Lectures on the History of Preaching (Alexandria, VA: Sheldon and Company, 1893), 55.