Allegory

On the other hand, Biblical allegories are for the most part understood to be allegories, but they often are also actual events. The reader is likely to place the Bible's allegories into the same category as Aesop's and deny the historicity of the Biblical event as much as he denies the historicity of a group of mice trying to bell a cat.

Doing this, however, is as foolish as denying that Isaac and Ishmael were ever born to a man named Abraham (despite the fact that all Jews and all Moslems attest that this happened) simply because Paul uses the two lads as an allegory in Galatians 4:21-31. Denying the historicity of the allegory is really denying that an omnipotent and omniscient God superintended the events in the Old Testament, which the Old Testament clearly claims is what happened. Exodus 7:3 states specifically that God hardened Pharaoh's heart so that His signs and wonders would be

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er, all the elements of the Passover, from it being "the beginning of months" to those eating it being dressed as pilgrims, to the blood being applied to the door in the shape of a cross, all had meaning pointing to what God would be doing later through Jesus Christ. We have nothing about Jesus Christ being done hurriedly or in error, but rather that "in the fulness of time" (Galatians 4:4) Jesus was born. The fourth reading, from the epistle of Barnabas, gives a curiously spurious interpretation of the meaning of the culinary prohibitions in the Mosaic Law. The author recognizes their symbolism, but through false stories about nature obtains a false interpretation. He does correctly state that the cloven hoof prescription indicates how the believer is to walk: separated. But even there, the animal that chews the cud represents how the believer is to thoughtfully "chew" on the word of God. The author here, more than the other three, seems to belie the original intent of the original author, who was God (or Moses.) The initial purpose of dietary laws was to be a witness to the surrounding nation, a "peculiar people" as Peter (1 Peter 2:9) called the church. The food regulations were to go in hand with the Sabbath, feast days,
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Approximate Word count = 3107
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page)