Allegory became a favored approach of Christians as they reinterpreted Jewish Scripture. Paul used allegory in Galatians 4:21--5:1. He interpreted Sarah and Isaac to symbolize the line of true believers who culminate in Christ, while Hagar and Ishmael stand for the Jews who have rejected Jesus as the Christ. Some scholars say that this selection is really an example of typology, rather than allegory.
21 Tell me, you who desire to be subject to the law, will you not listen to the law?
22 For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and the other by a free woman.
23 One, the child of the slave, was born according to the flesh; the other, the child of the free woman, was born through the promise.
24 Now this is an allegory: these women are two covenants. One woman, in fact, is Hagar, from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery.
25 Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children.
26 But the other woman corresponds to the Jerusalem above; she is free, and she is our mother.
27 For it is written, "Rejoice, you childless one, you who bear no children, burst into song and shout, you who endure no birth pangs; for the children of the desolate woman are more numerous than the children of the one who is married."
28 Now you, my friends, are children of the promise, like Isaac.
29 But just as at that time the child who was born according to the flesh persecuted the child who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also.
30 But what does the scripture say? "Drive out the slave and her child; for the child of the slave will not share the inheritance with the child of the free woman."
31 So then, friends, we are children, not of the slave but of the free woman.
1 For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Bible Study Leaders Appeal for "Logic of Grace" at Central American "Encuentro" by Alexa Smith, PCUSA News Service, March 12, 1997: "A call for Christians to live unfettered by a global market that claims to be free but actually enslaves both the rich and the poor was the focus of the Galatians-based Bible study at the Presbyterian Church's Encuentro... ."
Return: Allegorical Interpretation
|
|
All biblical quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) of the Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission.
