of natural law all on its own suggests that allegory is a useful and perhaps essential linguistic device for Scriptural interpretation. In light of the contributions of the scientific method to the body of human knowledge, many of the images and narratives in the bible must be said to have fantastical elements. Even so, there is compelling evidence within the biblical text itself that the uses of allegory were entirely intentional.
Apocalyptic. During the centuries just before and just after the emergence of Christianity, there was a strong strand of apocalyptic writing in the Jewish and Christian communities of faith. Jewish messianism and Christian apocalyptic texts shared an anticipation of wholesale transformation of human experience, probably by way of cataclysm. Messianism anticipated a beneficial transformation and glorious restoration of the empire of the Jews under David and Solomon. Christians anticipated that Jesus, the messiah whose life, work, and teaching had both fulfilled and disposed of Jewish tradition and prophecy, would return to
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