CMI on Allegorical Method - Answered

1) Creation vs. Evolution : If some pseudo-orthodox thinks Patristic and Literal interpretation of Genesis are incompatible ..., 2) CMI on Allegorical Method - Answered, 3) Literal Sense vs Literalistic Approach, Allegoric Sense vs Figurative Approach, 4) Great Bishop of Geneva! : Congratulating Lita Cosner on agreeing basically with StThomas Aquinas, 5) Mark Shea's Understanding of Scripture, 6) HGL's F.B. writings : Neither Sungenis nor Palm is totally right on Psalm 18 (Sungenis is less off)

As one on CMI stated correctly on the case of St Augustine and his take on six days, he believed in the allegorical method and this is not a denial of the historicity of the Old Testament texts*, since - here I add to their take - unlike an allegory by a human author who adapts his fictional story to what he is trying to expose (Fred Clark made on about a man claiming "Gospel of St Matthew denies there is an Ohio"), God can adapt real events to be prophecies about what He wants to reveal further on.

They seem critical of the allegorical method as if it meant "wanting to extract further information beyond the history", when in fact it is rather a checking of matches. Like the one Our Lord made between Hades and the whale of the grave and the whale or Jonah and Himself.

Now, it is basics that Adam allegorises Christ (it is also Biblical, he is called "the last Adam"), and Eve variously the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Church. I just found another matching item. It is of course well known that as Adam slept and God created Eve of a wound (temporary) in his side, so also Christ slept on the Cross and God created the Church out of His opened side, denoting by the water and blood the principal two of the Seven Sacraments that constitute the Church.

However, Adam named the animals before he slept. One Hovind video, Kent is making a little charade on this as if it had said directly that God let him choose his bride (it can be an indication thereof that it says he found no suitable help). "The hamster - too small, the giraffe - too big ..." and the list went on in Eden if Kent Hovind got this right (and we know that a list with probably Hebrew words for hamster and for giraffe was pronounced on Day Six - that is on the First Friday which corresponds to Good Friday). But did Christ in any sense name the animals on Good Friday?

Well, he implied Judaism - the guys taunting him and being about to found the wrongful and apostate Jewish religion - was "the bulls of Bashan". At least they understood His hint, since they fell silent as soon as He cited the first words of the Psalm. It includes lines like taunters taunting King David in very similar words and also the line "the Bulls of Bashan surround me".

Would "bulls of Bashan" not apply better to Samaritan religion than to Jewish one? No. The Samaritan religion was referred to as "cows of Bashan" by Amos. Cows and bulls, whether from Bashan or elsewhere, are not same gender, though same kind.

So, yes, I retain confidence in the Allegoric Method. Use the traces already given in Tradition (or for some items even Holy Bible itself) and follow the clues, you will find more and more support. It is not like trying to see images in shadows cast by a fire, since the support you find can be communicated and judged by others. Others in the Church, alive or already in the Fatherland above ... and if noone else is there, you can also directly confide in God's judgement.

Hans-Georg Lundahl
Bpi, Georges Pompidou
St Sigfrid of Wexio
St Onesimus
15-II-2014

PS, if someone does not enjoy the designation "bulls of Bashan" being applicable to himself and his family in the eyes of God, St Peter told how to no longer be such. Acts, chapter 2, verses 14 to 40. Fuller comment on same in Haydock.

* "Miller’s inconsistent thinking comes through in many other ways. Like a compromising evangelical, he misrepresents Augustine and Basil (p. 255), and states that the Days in Genesis were supposed to be understood as long periods of time. But Augustine thought that Creation was instantaneous, and so he erred in the diametrically opposite direction. He was a member of the Alexandrian school that fancifully allegorized almost all Scripture (which did not necessarily deny its historicity but tried to seek additional meanings), and was not a Hebrew scholar."

From: Mutilating Miller*
by John Woodmorappe and Jonathan Sarfati
A review of Finding Darwin’s God
by Kenneth R. Miller
Cliff Street Books, New York, 2000
http://creation.com/review-finding-darwins-god-by-kenneth-miller

As to not being a Hebrew scholar, if this were a handicap we would not be able to trust most Church Fathers - which on the contrary we do, whether they were or were not Hebrew scholars or whether we do not know if they were.