Replies

Quoi?

Well, an allegory is "a form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative, are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious, or political significance, and characters are often personifications of abstract ideas as charity, greed, or envy."

Bunyon's The Pilgrim's Progress is an allegory of the Christian life. The Pilgrim's Regress by C.S. Lewis is also an allegory of the same. Some people have claimed the Song of Songs to be an allegory of Christ's love for the church because that was easier than to just admit that it was a description of physical love between a man and a woman. So if the Bible overall is an allegory, what is I Kings or Deuteronomy an allegory of? What is Moses an allegory of or Joseph?

It's true that Paul described the events of the exodus as examples for our benefit that we should not do the same things they did and were punished. But, interestingly, he does not say that the food and drink provided the escaping Israelites by God was an allegory of the spiritual food and drink given to us by God. Instead, he makes the point that those people back then, actually escaping from Egypt and wandering in the desert, being fed physical food and drink by God (from the rock) were also partaking, back then, of the same spiritual food and drink that he and the Corinthians right then were partaking of--from the Rock who is Christ. His point was that they partook of Christ even back then, turned away from God, displeased him, and got their asses kicked and that we now, partaking of that same Rock, should be very careful in a way they were not lest the same thing happen to us. He very clearly considered that they were examples to us and that the strength of the example was not that it was a particularly good metaphor, but that it really happened to people who were just as real as those to whom he was writing.