Allegorical Interpretation and the Future of Scripture
Somewhere between 20 BCE and 10 BCE, a man named Philo was born to a noble Jewish family in Alexandria. He was raised and educated in one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the known world and lived through the horrific rise of European Antisemitism during the Roman Empire, culminating during his lifetime in the Alexandrian Riots of 38 CE. He also spent a great deal of time writing treatises about the Torah (or Pentateuch for Christians) using a method called allegorical interpretation, to show that contemporary philosophical/scientific ideas were present within scripture. Little else is known about Philo’s life, although his influence on Judaism and early Christian theology remains today, largely through his remaining works.
This article will be an extensive look at allegorical interpretation, beginning with a definition for and the driving reasons behind Philo’s approach to the Torah. Two examples will follow that demonstrate this process — the first on fusing Platonic Forms with Creation, and the second on the Garden of Eden as an allegory for human sensation. Four key dangers of allegorical interpretation will be outlined afterwards, along with an example that demonstrates all four dangers involving Plato’s ordering of the soul and the Rivers of Eden. After that will follow some examples where Philo challenges literal interpretations of scripture using four key methods. Finally, we’ll look at the contemporary conflict between religion and science and the power of allegorical interpretation to transform religion’s approach (and perhaps even science’s approach) to scripture.
Defining Allegorical Interpretation
Allegorical interpretation is Philo’s attempt to synthesize Jewish theology with Greek natural philosophy. He uses standard rational and rhetorical methods, heavily influenced by Plato and Aristotle, with a theological and teleological outlook, i.e., everything has a purpose in God’s Creation. Early Christian theologians would adopt these methods for their own theological works and would attempt a similar synthesis during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. (Seymour-Smith, 86–87). Philo explains this process succinctly within Questions and Answers on Genesis III while denoting the significance of different temple sacrifices:
“Therefore the giving of the law, that is to say the sacred scriptures, that I may so express myself, is a sort of living unity, the whole of which one ought to examine carefully with all one’s eyes, and so discern with truth, and certainty, and clearness, the universal intention of the whole of the scripture without dissecting or lacerating its harmony, or disuniting its unity; by any other mode everything would appear utterly inconsistent and absurd, being dissociated from all community or equity.” (Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis III, 842)
Two important caveats are necessary for this definition. The first is that the Torah should be considered as literally true in nearly all cases, suggesting that “one must not add anything to, or take anything away from the law” (Philo, The Special Laws IV, 630). Philo mentions this in reference to the giving of the law, but the admonition applies to everything written by Moses. The second caveat is that scripture is also interpreted and enhanced based on tradition. Philo mentions this at the outset of a narrative look at Moses’ life, but many theologians do this. Philo even argues that because he is able to properly synthesize sacred scriptures with traditional stories and histories that he better understands the history of Moses than other people. (Philo, On the Life of Moses I, 459)
One might wonder why Philo would be interested in this endeavor. Philo was clearly a philosopher as well as a theologian, interested in understanding the world and its processes. During Philo’s time we see an accumulation of knowledge unlike anywhere else in the known world, based heavily in Greek natural philosophy and mathematics, which were both doing a better job of explaining the world’s origins, properties, and processes than scripture. Jewish mystics already believed that the Torah contained hidden messages; Philo was trying to find natural philosophy within the same scriptures.
Philo was also interested in apologizing (in the academic sense) for the Jewish nation. The Roman Empire had embraced and transformed Ancient Greek gods and philosophy, including its polytheistic theology and massive volumes of written culture available. By contrast, Judaism was a monotheistic religion with very few written works available to challenge the dominant philosophies of the day. His work is largely an effort intellectually to engage in this battle of ideas, but also guided socially by the growing antisemitism within the Roman Empire beginning with Caligula’s chaotic reign. On the Embassy to Gaius specifically recounts Philo’s efforts to legitimate the Jewish people and their theology during this time.
If Philo can reconcile Greco-Roman philosophy with the Torah, then he can legitimate scripture and preserve space for the Jewish people and their theology. Primacy for accepted philosophical ideas becomes key, so Philo works to show a genealogy of these ideas within the Torah. Abraham becomes a mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher because of his Chaldean origins. (Philo, On the Cherubim, 80). Moses in writing the Torah becomes the first philosopher, with these truths being handed down from Abraham. (Philo, On the Eternity of the World, 709)
Philo even addresses specific arguments against Jewish theology, like the Problem of Evil, which asks why a perfect God would allow evil to exist within the world. Philo addresses this during Creation, by suggesting that Moses states “let us create man” (Genesis 1:26) because God had helpers, so that the good and perfect parts of man could be attributed to God and the bad or imperfect parts could be attributed to his helpers. (Philo, On the Creation, 11) It only sidesteps the issue, as other arguments easily come to mind, but it does show that Philo was interested in defending Jewish theology philosophically as well.
Creation and the Platonic Forms
Creation stories are often easy targets for literal criticism. Our earliest cultures sought to satisfy our innate curiosity about ourselves and the universe using the best knowledge and understanding of their times. Advancements in human knowledge and scientific understanding have often cast doubt upon these earliest creation stories, especially when being literally interpreted. Modern scientific explanations for our origins have placed a great deal of pressure on literal interpretations of Genesis over the past century in particular.
Philo had to deal with a similar conflict during his time. Platonic forms were as key to understanding the universe during the Roman Empire as modern physics and chemistry are today. Plato believed that there were two worlds: one physical world, which is the reality around us that we can perceive with our senses, and one ideal world, which contains the perfect or idealized forms of the reality we can perceive but can only be understood with our intellect. Plato spends a great deal of time fleshing out this idea during his famous Allegory of the Cave. (Plato, 251–255)
Philo also must deal with a more sophistic complaint. The Book of Genesis has two creation stories, one which happens over six days, and another which repeats many of the same steps afterwards, including the creation of the plants and animals, along with Adam and Eve, sometimes with more details. Shallow critics often demand these two creation stories be reconciled, seeing their presence as a form of hypocrisy or a flaw in presentation.
Philo finds a way to use the sophistical complaint to inject Platonic Forms into the creation story by positing that the first creation was God creating the ideal world, followed by the second creation where God created the physical world. The ideal world is a perfect template for the imperfect physical world. Philo states this succinctly in On the Creation.
“And we must understand in the case of everything else which is decided on by the external senses, there were elder forms and motions previously existing, according to which the things which were created were fashioned and measured out. For although Moses did not describe everything collectively, but only a part of what existed, as he was desirous of brevity, beyond all men that ever wrote, still the few things which he has mentioned are examples of the nature of all, for nature perfects none of those which are perceptible to the outward senses without an incorporeal model.” (Philo, On the Creation, 18)
Philo also mentions this within Allegorical Interpretation I, when discussing the creation of the plants. The first creation story creates the plants on the third day (Genesis 1:11–12). During the second creation story, however, Philo interprets the symbolism of the green herbs and the grasses of the fields, seeing the green herb as the ideal forms for all the plants and the grasses as the physical forms for all the plants. (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation I, 27). Philo considers these same concepts in Questions and Answers on Genesis I. (Philo, 791) Additionally, Philo can also square the second creation of animals (Genesis 2:19), using ideal creation and physical creation. (Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis I, 795).
Perhaps more important for satisfying our innate curiosity about our origins is the creation of two men, the ideal man created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) and the physical man created from the ground (Genesis 2:7). Philo argues insightfully that only the ideal man perceptible to the intellect could be created in the image of God. (Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis I, 791). By outlining the distinction between “incorporeal” man and “corporeal” man, Philo also has an opportunity to explain why physical man, being imperfect, is subject to flaws and corruptibility. (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation I, 28) Evil in the world comes from the physical, imperfect, corruptible bodies we see, not the ideal, perfect, incorruptible forms from which they are produced. (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation II, 39).
Philo finds all manner of insight throughout On the Creation, not just on the Platonic Forms. His manner of allegorical interpretation allows him to reconcile Jewish creation with Platonic cosmology, in a way that also begins to address many of the lesser challenges to the Torah. Once the cosmological issues are reconciled, Philo closes on five lessons to be taken from Creation: (1) God is real; (2) God is one; (3) God created the world; (4) the world is one; and (5) God exerts prudence for the benefit of the world. (Philo, On the Creation, 24) By reconciling Creation with Platonic Forms, Philo is also making room for Jewish theology in the cosmopolitan discourse of Alexandria.
The Garden of Eden and Human Sensation
Philo continues his use of allegorical interpretation throughout the Torah in most of his treatises, stepping through Genesis and Exodus almost line by line to interpret any hidden meanings. In addition to the origins of the universe, Philo was also trying to understand human behavior, particularly the origins of ethical behavior. For Philo, simple obedience to God isn’t enough to determine the ethics of our actions; our ethical actions must also make rational sense. The Garden of Eden becomes fertile territory for exploring these concepts.
Philo shifts gears on symbolism upon entering Paradise. When God breathes life into the physical man created from the earth, he is bringing the mind to the body. (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation I, 28). God then places the physical man into Paradise. Since physical man is imperfect, God commands Adam (now named) to eat from all the fruit in Paradise to nourish himself. (Genesis 2:15–17) Philo sees an allegorical meaning behind the command, for the mind to nourish itself on the virtues within Paradise. (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation I, 36) Paradise becomes a symbol for the virtues. Adam becomes a symbol for the mind.
After the naming of the animals, God then makes a helper for Adam (Genesis 2:21–23). Physical woman is there to be a companion and to assist Adam. However, Philo extends his interpretation to argue that just as the woman is a helper to Adam, so too are the external senses a helper to the mind. Physical woman becomes a symbol for the external senses. (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation II, 38–39) Marriage then becomes one metaphor for the merging of the mind and the external senses into one flesh. (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation II, 43)
Nakedness takes on symbolism as well. Initially, Adam and the woman are naked and unashamed. (Genesis 2:25) Not only are they physically naked, but both the mind and the external senses are also naked, which is to say, they have no knowledge of either virtue or vice. (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation II, 43) Without that knowledge of virtue or vice, there’s nothing disgraceful in either of them. (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation II, 45) Both the mind and the external senses exist in an intermediary state, neither inherently good, nor inherently bad, but impressionable like wax, a metaphor often used by Philo when discussing the soul. (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation III, 57, 78)
At this point, the serpent enters the picture (Genesis 3:1). Philo first alludes to the serpent as a symbol for pleasure in On the Creation, using a series of allegorical inferences to explain why a serpent was the best metaphor for pleasure. (Philo, On the Creation, 22) However, within Allegorical Interpretation II, Philo explains the reason for pleasure to exist is to help join the mind and the external senses, this time in the operational sense, not just in the physical sense. (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation II, 45) Something must be sensed and that something is pleasure, which means Philo’s conception of pleasure is something external to the mind and the senses, not a biochemical reaction within our minds and bodies. Philo further argues that pleasure is inherently deceptive to our external senses, which in turn tricks the mind. (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation III, 57).
The serpent now deceives the woman into eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. (Genesis 3:1–5) Philo sees this tree not just as a symbol for the knowledge of virtue and vice, but the symbol for the proper comprehension of all knowledge. (Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis I, 793) Similar to pleasure, knowledge is also something that exists externally as an ideal. The woman now takes and eats from the tree, then gives the fruit to Adam. (Genesis 3:6) This becomes a metaphor for human sensation, because the mind experiences pleasure through the external senses, as Philo describes thusly:
“But with reference to the mind, the woman, when understood symbolically, is sense, and the man is intellect. Moreover, the outward senses do of necessity touch those things which are perceptible by them; but it is through the medium of the outward senses that things are transmitted to the mind. For the outward senses are influenced by the objects which are presented to them; and the intellect by the outward senses.” (Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis I, 798–799)
Philo also considers the specific implications of Adam and the woman now having the knowledge of good and evil. Prior to eating the apple, they were free from all virtue and vice. But after eating the apple, they become burdened with the knowledge of virtue and vice, and realize they are now in a state of vice, becoming naked and ashamed. (Genesis 3:7)
The repercussions from this act now follow, in the order of which they are to be blamed. (Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis I, 800) First, the serpent is cursed above all creatures, because the serpent is a symbol for pleasure and pleasure underpins all the other passions at their base. (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation III, 63) Next, the woman is cursed with experiencing pain, because once the external senses are capable of feeling pleasure, they become capable of feeling pain. (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation III, 73) Finally, the man is cursed with having to toil and labor to survive. The struggle of living with the knowledge of good and evil becomes a symbol of the struggle between the mind and the external senses when it comes to pleasure and pain. (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation III, 56) Both struggles are also hampered by our imperfect capabilities attempting to correctly understand the knowledge which comes from God. (Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis I, 793). For humanity, ignorance really was bliss.
Dangers of Allegorical Interpretation
Both previous examples show the elegance of allegorical interpretation to draw parallels between natural philosophy and religious scripture. One can also start to see the dangers of drawing conclusions based upon allegorical reasoning. The next section will look at four specific areas when allegorical reasoning can go wrong: cultural biases, numerology, etymology, and a process which will be called shoehorning.
Cultural Biases
Our personal ideologies are influenced by the cultures in which we live. Philosophers, theologians, and scientists like to believe their ideas transcend the lives in which we live, just as Platonic Forms transcend our physical world. The last century of cultural deconstruction and the much-needed inclusion of missing voices and perspectives have shown us how cultural biases are built into what we consider universal truths within nearly all aspects of our society.
Philo places his cultural biases on full display within his treatises. In particular, Philo adopts the widely accepted misogyny of his contemporary culture and philosophical thought. Nearly every treatise uses the word “feminine” in a disparaging manner to describe something, particularly as lesser than a correspondingly greater “masculine” counterpart. Women were generally considered lesser to men in all aspects within a deeply patriarchal society.
Eve’s story becomes riddled with cultural biases injected into each allegorical interpretation. Philo gives four reasons why Eve is formed from Adam’s rib, leading off with “that the woman might not be of equal dignity with the man” and continues with three other cultural reasons. (Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis I, 796) He further argues that the external senses were born from the mind because the mind (man) is what takes action and the external senses (women) receive that action. (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation II, 42) The serpent targets the woman (external senses) because both are “more accustomed to being deceived”. (Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis I, 798)
Philo doesn’t believe his allegorical interpretations have been directly influenced by his cultural biases. Philo is seeking a reconciliation between Jewish theology and natural philosophy, both of which make nearly universal misogynistic assumptions about women. Philo isn’t hateful in his misogyny; it is just a cultural fact that must be fit into his project. Philo would never consider that these foundational stories were written with cultural biases (since the Torah must be infallible), nor that his cultural biases were influenced by bad natural philosophy (because it was accepted as fact through reason).
The result is a lot of allegorical reasoning that is inherently misogynistic, which almost relies on misogyny to justify the allegory. Eve must be inherently flawed or lesser than Adam to become culpable for being deceived and subjected to Adam. Every woman mentioned later is either compared directly with Eve’s flaws or compared against other elements of a misogynistic natural philosophy. Perhaps the ultimate perversion is Philo’s justification for the treatment of Hagar the Handmaid. (Dobzynski)
Numerology
Natural philosophy at the time of Philo was heavily influenced by mathematics. Pythagoras, who would later discover the famous theorem, was the first major philosopher/mathematician to contemplate the philosophy of mathematics and its relation to the natural world. His discoveries about geometry would later heavily influence and provide support for Plato’s notion of the World of Ideals and the Platonic Forms. Philo would have had access to Pythagoras’ works, along with the many advancements that came with Euclid’s Elements.
However, there’s a difference between mathematics and numerology. Mathematics is used to describe the relationship between numbers or to measure some aspect of the physical world. It is a descriptive science. Numerology, on the other hand, believes that numbers have inherent meanings hidden within them, which are transmuted into the objects they describe. It is a proscriptive pseudoscience. Pythagoras’ theories were ultimately a mixture of both, which means Philo inherits those same numerological ideas as facts through Plato.
Nowhere is this tendency more apparent than during Philo’s analysis of Creation. After each day of Creation, Philo explains the significance of the number in relation to that day. These connections can be interesting, like the creation of the heavens on the fourth day because only then could there be four seasons (Philo, On the Creation, 8) or the creation of the creatures on the fifth day because all creatures possess the five external senses (Philo, On the Creation, 9). Philo clearly believes that the first creation was done in six days because of the significance of six being the “most productive” number. (Philo, On the Creation, 4). But sometimes these connections become obsessive, as seen when Philo spends nearly a sixth of On the Creation describing the important significance of the number seven, including: mathematical significance, lingual significance, developmental stages of life, musical significance, seven divisions of the universe, seven planets, constellations with seven stars, seven divisions of the soul, seven aspects of sight, seven physical motions, seven holes in the head, and seven days for menstruation. (Philo, On the Creation, 13–18)
Ironically, because numbers are so consistent in their usage, they become incredibly flexible for allegorical interpretation. You can link up any two concepts if they share a common number, as Philo squares two Creations and two Adams by referring to two worlds, one of ideas and one physical. These numeric connections make up a great deal of the elegance in Philo’s interpretation, and perhaps might be a method of finding insight between two concepts, but the mere “equality” of the numeric value in both concepts isn’t enough to link them together.
Numerology also fails as a meaningful form of analysis when our understanding of either concept changes or isn’t used consistently. Philo is notorious in his treatises for breaking some ideas into different numbers as needed. Much of Allegorical Interpretation is focused on the proper ordering of the soul once the mind and external senses are linked. Philo breaks the soul into three parts following Plato’s ordering of the soul: reason, passion, and desire. (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation III, 63) Philo also conveniently breaks the soul down into seven parts (five senses, vocalization, procreation) while explaining the significance of the seventh day. (Philo, On the Creation, 17) Further, Philo doesn’t consider the implications of additional discovery, like finding more planets in our solar system than the seven counted by Philo. (Philo, On the Creation, 16)
Etymology
In addition to numbers having inherent meaning, Philo believes that names and language also have inherent power and meaning beyond merely identifying an object. During the second creation, God brings forth all the animals and has Adam name each one. (Genesis 2:19–20) Philo argues that Adam not only names the animals, but everything else at this point. But why? Philo lists a few reasons why Adam should name the animals, but primarily it is seen as a means by which Adam can demonstrate his capabilities, even though God knows that Adam will succeed and what each of the names will be. (Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis I, 795)
Philo seems to be treating this as the dawn of language in the physical world. Since knowledge is something external, existing in the World of Ideas, then language existed in the same idealized form in the World of Ideas. For Philo, language itself isn’t something we agree upon amongst ourselves in the physical world, but something revealed to us from the ideal world by either God or the mind. Philo believes language and names, as something developed by God during the ideal creation, have inherent and hidden meaning, which only increases the significance of when God renames Abraham and Sarah. (Genesis 17:5, 17:15)
Etymology is a very valid science, when linguists use the history of language to study language itself. It also has the same power as numerology to draw insights between two concepts. But ultimately, using etymology has the same flaws as numerology when our understanding changes for either of the two linked concepts or even the etymological link between them. The link is ultimately limited to the two words being used to describe the concepts, not necessarily between the concepts themselves. Fortunately, Philo generally only relies on etymological arguments as supporting evidence, not usually the crux of any specific allegorical interpretation.
Shoehorning
Shoehorning is the last danger of allegorical interpretation, and perhaps the most destructive. Sometimes you can’t get a shoe to fit, no matter how hard you try and no matter how much you believe your foot should fit. When we have this problem in our physical lives, we rely on a tool called a shoehorn, which helps us force our foot into a shoe that would otherwise not comfortably fit. Philo is actively seeking to reconcile the two major means of understanding the world: the Torah, which Philo believes to be literally true by faith and tradition, and natural philosophy, which Philo believes is demonstrably true based upon reason and verification. Philo is trying to fit his foot (natural philosophy) into his shoe (Torah), and sometimes to maintain the infallibility of both, it requires a philosophical shoehorn
One example of this shoehorning occurs when Philo is considering whether the serpent actually spoke with a human voice. (Genesis 3:2–5) Serpents, according to natural philosophy, are not able to speak. Philo gives three possible ways in which this could have been possible. First, animals may have had the ability to speak in Paradise. Second, God gave the serpent the ability to speak miraculously. Third, Adam and Eve were able to understand the serpent’s unique speech. (Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis I, 797–798)
Each reason is a subtle use of a shoehorn to explain away the problems with a literal interpretation. If animals were able to speak or if Adam and Eve were able to understand them, then the discrepancy has been resolved by using natural philosophy itself as shoehorn. Otherwise, Philo can always use the ultimate shoehorn, that the serpent speaks because of a miracle from an omnipotent God, which also conveniently has the properties of being simultaneously irrefutable and unproveable. Philo’s not really interested in how Adam and Eve might have been able to understand the serpent, just that there is a plausible reason to maintain some form of literal interpretation.
All four dangers of allegorical interpretation, but especially shoehorning, show that Philo’s form of allegorical interpretation isn’t really a synthesis of ideas as much as an attempt by any means possible to show that natural philosophy exists within the Torah. If you can make a persuasive argument, then you can make an allegorical interpretation. Philo does this cleverly in many places, but oftentimes he argues like the very sophists he decries, playing with assumptions and numbers and names as needed, or using philosophical or theological shoehorns. For Philo, like many sophists, the ends tend to justify the means.
The Rivers of Eden and the Ordering of the Soul
The Rivers of Eden provide an excellent means to explore the effects of all four dangers of allegorical interpretation. Philo interprets the Rivers of Eden as a metaphor for Plato’s ordering of the soul using a two-step process. We’ll first look Plato’s argument, then see how Philo applies it to the Rivers of Eden.
Plato covers his ordering of the soul during a discussion between Socrates and Glaucon in The Republic. Socrates has just finished outlining the three classes of an ideal city: the wise philosopher kings ruling with reason and wisdom, the brave soldiers fighting with strength and passion, and the self-disciplined people justly guiding their desires. Socrates then performs his own allegorical interpretation, suggesting that as justice in a society exists where wise kings lead soldiers and people, so too does justice exist within an individual when our reason controls our passions and our desires. (Plato, The Republic, 149) Philo sees the struggle between the mind and the external senses as similar to the struggle within the soul between reason (mind) and our passions and desires (accessed through the senses). (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation III, 63)
The Torah lists four rivers flowing out of Eden: the Pheison, the Gihon, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. (Genesis 2:10–14) Philo uses the list of rivers, and their particular characteristics, to correlate each river with one of the key virtues to ordering the soul.
“In these words Moses intends to sketch out the particular virtues. And they also are four in number, prudence, temperance, courage and justice. Now the greatest river from which the four branches flow off, is generic virtue, which we have already called goodness; and the four branches are the same number of virtues. Generic virtue, therefore, derives its beginning from Eden, which is the wisdom of God; which rejoices and exults, and triumphs, being delighted at and honoured on account of nothing else, except its Father, God, and the four particular virtues, are branches from the generic virtue, which like a river waters all the good actions of each, with an abundant stream of benefits.” (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation I, 31–32)
Philo seemingly scores two allegorical interpretations at once. The main river which flows out of Eden is generic virtue, or perhaps more correctly, the ideal of virtue, which Philo calls goodness, and the four branches become an individual kinds of virtue. Philo spends the next several sections linking the Pheison with prudence, the Gihon with courage, the Tigris with temperance, and the Euphrates with justice. This allegorical interpretation parallels nicely with Paradise as a symbol for the virtues while also giving Philo a means of showing the Platonic ordering of the soul within the Torah.
Unfortunately, Philo also gives another allegorical interpretation within Questions and Answers on Genesis I. In this version, Philo links the Pheison with prudence, the Gihon with sobriety, the Tigris with fortitude, and the Euphrates with justice. (Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis I, 793) It appears that the symbolism for the Gihon and the Tigris have been switched, with courage/fortitude and temperance/sobriety moving between the Gihon and the Tigris, but Philo gives equally plausible allegorical interpretations for each.
Philo even goes further in Questions and Answers on Genesis I to offer explanations for why Paradise has not been found, despite knowing where the Tigris and Euphrates are sourced. Philo first posits that we must consider the possibility that the sources for these rivers may have moved since Creation, before moving to a second theory that these four rivers are fed from four underground rivers which have their common source somewhere else on the planet. Philo states explicitly that “by all means we must consider the holy scriptures infallible, which point out the fact of four rivers”. (Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis I, 793)
We can see all four dangers of Philo’s method of allegorical interpretation within this example. Philo first uses numerology to match up the four Rivers of Eden with four specific virtues, one of which is the harmony of the other three. This connection only works if the soul remains split in three parts, not seven as we saw as supportive evidence during the Creation story. Philo also uses etymology and cultural biases to link up each river to each virtue, arguing that Pheison must be a sign for prudence as it shares etymological ties with parsimony (Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis I, 793) and that the Gihon stands for courage because it surrounds Ethiopia, which interpreted means humiliation. (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation I, 32). The former argument is mostly guesswork to fit the puzzle together; the latter argument is based in long-standing anti-Ethiopian sentiments in Alexandria, which occasionally pop up in his other treatises, along with his anti-Egyptian biases.
Perhaps the worst of this allegorical interpretation is Philo shoehorning a few rational or natural explanations for why Paradise cannot be found. Philo is willing to consider the existence of massive underground rivers leading to a remote Paradise rather than consider that the rivers were meant purely as symbolism within the scriptures. This argument is very similar to theories explaining why no remnants of Noah’s Ark can be found on Mt. Ararat. This shows that allegorical interpretation is great at drawing insight, but bad at drawing conclusions. And it shows that when allegorical interpretations are presented as rational arguments, any literal interpretation becomes possible with the right shoehorn.
Limits of Literal Interpretations
What exactly is meant by a literal interpretation? We know it means taking the text as it is, without assuming metaphors or allegories. This definition fits well for Philo, since language is something that exists within the World of Ideas, coming to Adam during his confirmation of abilities while naming the animals. But even Philo doesn’t always take the Torah literally. Sometimes he uses reason to argue that a passage should be taken literally. Sometimes he defers to philosophical properties about God or scientific understandings of the world. And sometimes, he argues that the language is simply wrong.
Six Day Creation
Philo’s allegorical interpretation of Creation serves as both a reconciliation of the two creation stories and a means of injecting the Platonic Forms into the Torah. This framework may solve a lot of issues raised by having two creation stories, but it also makes taking a literal interpretation of Genesis problematic. Philo argues that it would be a sign of “great simplicity” to believe the first creation, when the Platonic Forms were created, was completed in six days, as time had not yet been created. Six days was meant figuratively because of the unique properties of the number six. (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation I, 25) Philo spends some time rehashing the importance of the number seven as well, before returning to conclude that “in this way the idea is excluded, that the universe was created in six days”. (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation I, 27).
This approach is one example of Philo deferring to cosmological properties (Platonic Forms, creation of time, etc…) over taking a literal interpretation. Philo’s reasoning is similar in ways some Christian biblical scholars point to St. Peter saying “with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day” (2 Peter 3:8) as a means of reconciling our scientific understanding of a multi-billion-year formation of the universe with a literal interpretation of a six-day creation. In both cases, days are taken figuratively in the six-day creation based on reason given other philosophical ideas about God and the universe.
Troubles in Paradise
After Adam and Eve have eaten from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they become aware of their state of vice and feel ashamed, covering their nakedness and hiding from God, before hearing God walking around Paradise and asking where Adam was hiding. (Genesis 3:7–9) Literally taken, this story requires accepting that God takes some sort of form capable of being hidden from, moving around Paradise, and using speech to communicate. Philo’s philosophical conception of God, based largely on Plato and Aristotle’s conception of God as Prime Mover, has no room for this kind of anthropomorphizing:
“For, since you have thought that God was walking in the garden, and was surrounded by it, learn now that in this you were mistaken, and hear from God who knows all things that most true statement that God is not in any one place. For he is not surrounded by anything, but he does himself surround everything. For that which is created is in place; for it is inevitable that it must be surrounded, and not be the thing which surrounds.” (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation III, 55–56)
Philo first attacks the notion that Adam and Eve could hide from God anywhere in Paradise, as God is omnipresent, but also offers up the possibility that Adam and Eve deluded themselves into believing they were hiding. (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation III, 50) Next, Philo dispels the notion that God would make sounds by walking within Paradise, claiming that God is not physical, but still also tries to split the difference by saying perhaps God created sounds that would seem as if he was moving or speaking in Paradise. (Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis I, 799) Finally, Philo emphasizes that God wasn’t asking Adam where he was because he didn’t know, as God is omniscient, but that God must have been communicating to Adam in some other manner, listing a few different possibilities for what could have been meant. (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation III, 56)
This example shows that Philo, along with many other Torah and Biblical scholars, will take some philosophical or theological notions about God over a purely literal interpretation, often using those notions to influence their reading of those texts. Philo may still want the literal interpretation to be true, as he provides alternative explanations that might still fit, but this only needs to be done after rejecting the most literal interpretation of the text on philosophical or theological grounds. Yielding to philosophical or theological notions helps avoid the perils of a strictly literal interpretation, as found among some modern Evangelical Christians.
The Rainbow After the Flood
One of the more surprising interpretations made by Philo concerns the nature of the “bow” in the clouds after the Great Deluge. Most Torah and Biblical scholars agree that God places a rainbow into the sky as a sign of his covenant not to flood the earth again. But Philo disagrees with this possibility given the scientific nature of rainbows, or Jupiter’s belt:
“But the belt of Jupiter has not, properly speaking, any separate nature of its own, but is merely an appearance of the solar rays on a wet cloud, all the phenomena of which are non-existent and incorporeal. And moreover, this is a further proof of that, that it is never seen at night, though clouds exist by night as well as by day.” (Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis II, 835)
Philo does not believe the rainbow could have been the sign, because it is a physical phenomenon, not a miraculous one. Philo then proceeds to consider what it must be, arguing that it represents an archer’s bow in the clouds, which provides a symbolic tranquility in a proper water cycle, not a deluge. (Philo, Questions and Answers on Genesis II, 835) Philo may, once again, be shoehorning natural explanations into the Torah, but he is doing so after using those natural explanations to challenge the most literal interpretation of the “bow”.
Barbarisms
When God is punishing the serpent after eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he begins discussing the enmity between the woman and the serpent, but suddenly switches genders, stating “He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel”. (Genesis 3:14–15) A purely literal interpretation would suggest that God is misspeaking, or suddenly changes to discuss the relationship between Adam and the serpent. Philo takes the much simpler approach.
“And the expression, ‘He shall watch thy head, and thou shalt watch his heel,’ is, as to its language, a barbarism, but, as to the meaning which is conveyed by it, a correct expression. Why so? It ought to be expressed with respect to the woman: but the woman is not he, but she. What, then, are we to say? From his discourse about the woman he has digressed to her seed and her beginning.” (Philo, Allegorical Interpretation III, 71–72)
Most Torah and Biblical scholars embrace this concept, that God through Moses is referring to the relationship between Adam and Eve’s descendants and the serpent. This interpretation also blends well with the idea that the serpent represents pleasure and humans are stuck in a constant struggle with pleasure during their lives. But perhaps most importantly, it shows that even literalists must acknowledge flaws in the text, even if Philo seems compelled to show that, in this instance, even God’s errors are correct.
Modern Allegorical Interpretation
Let’s review what we’ve learned about Philo’s method of allegorical interpretation. Philo is interested in reconciling the Torah with natural philosophy, specifically by finding the elements of natural philosophy buried within the Torah. For Philo, both the Torah and natural philosophy are infallibly true: the Torah by God and/or faith, and natural philosophy by reason and demonstration. We’ve also covered four dangers of performing allegorical interpretation, which show that while allegorical interpretation may be great at creating insight, it is terrible at drawing conclusions, and can ultimately be used to find whatever one might want within religious scripture.
Two key concepts can be extracted by looking at Philo’s framework for allegorical interpretation. First, while Philo’s method may be trying to fit natural philosophy into the Torah, this one-way process could just as easily be reversed where the Torah needs to fit into natural philosophy. Philo does this on occasion when he reaches the irrational limits of a purely literal interpretation. Philo may defer mostly to the Torah, but this process can be reversed, or even happen simultaneously. Second, while Philo’s method is to assume that both the Torah and natural philosophy are infallibly true, allegorical interpretation needn’t be bound by assumptions of infallibility for either side. Allegorical interpretation, as a method, works even with a presumption of fallibility of either the Torah or natural philosophy. Both key concepts will help us understand modern attempts at allegorical interpretation.
One might ask why we should be concerned with allegorical interpretation. We have a similar division in the world today between scientific understanding and religious scripture when it comes to explaining the origins of the universe. Once again modern scientific theories are doing a better job of describing the universe than the same creation stories ever have or could. Moreover, the nature of scientific understanding, being one of constant evolution and expansion using a method based upon reason and observation, is growing at an exponential rate. Each discovery makes our understanding better or more complete, even while acknowledging well documented missteps or abandoned/revised theories. By contrast, religious scriptures are sacrosanct, so there’s a clear epistemological limit to how much and how well they can truly explain the universe and its origins. Philosophical understanding was competing with religious or cultural ideas during Philo’s time. Today, scientific understanding is competing with religious scriptures, and has well surpassed the ability of religious scriptures to understand the world.
Religions once again find themselves needing to reconcile their religious scriptures, particularly their creation stories, with advancements in scientific understanding. Scientistic-minded people, particularly the more outspoken atheists, are also engaged in more deconstructive, perhaps even destructive forms of allegorical interpretation. While each form of allegorical interpretation may be unique to the individual performing the task, each form falls into one of four key frameworks.
The first framework is Philo’s approach, the reconciliatory approach: trying to place infallible natural philosophy into an infallible Torah. Some scientists today, particularly those backed by religious organizations, are engaged in this kind of process when it comes to science and scripture. One modern example is treating the six-day creation as the physical creation of the universe and the second creation as the physical creation of the earth. We’ve covered the dangers and limits of this kind of interpretation previously.
The second framework is the scientistic approach: trying to place fallible religious scripture into an infallible scientific model. We see this effort in psychological and literary interpretations of religious scripture, along with lengthy debates intent on showing the fallibility of religious scripture. This process is not intended as a reconciliation as much as a deconstruction of religious scripture to be replaced with scientific understanding.
The third framework is the creationist approach: trying to place fallible scientific understanding into infallible religious scripture. A significant portion of the planet still maintains a belief in a literal interpretation of the six-day creation in Genesis, despite all reason and evidence to the contrary. Many people who apply this framework to religious scripture simply reject the totality of scientific understanding, in the same manner that scientistic-minded people reject the totality of religious scripture. Some people who apply this framework, particularly Creation Science, have attempted to develop a comprehensive cosmology and scientific understanding that still checks out against a six-day creation roughly six thousand years ago. These efforts are done without the elegance of Philo, nor usually with any meaningful understanding of the science they are questioning or twisting to fit the story. Understanding the dangers of allegorical interpretations can help in properly evaluating these interpretations, particularly when they are presented as rational conclusions.
The final framework is the synthesis approach: trying to place fallible religious scripture into fallible scientific understanding, and vice versa. While many people are willing to still adhere to the creationist framework, many other people are more willing to pursue a mutual reconciliation between religious scripture and scientific understanding. One manifestation of this framework would be the efforts of Intelligent Design proponents to reconcile scientific understanding with religious scripture. This effort leans more towards Philo’s approach, willing to take some portions of religious scripture figuratively if it better complements the philosophical or scientific understanding. Astronomical origins of the universe and evolutionary processes aren’t really a problem, if God is ultimately the creator and driving force, either directly or through the properties of the universe. This willingness to take scripture figuratively lessens considerably the further away one gets from the earliest stories after Creation.
A quick note on Intelligent Design as a framework. We’re focused here on Intelligent Design as an example of the synthesis framework for allegorical interpretation, not suggesting that Intelligent Design, as an expression of that framework, holds any particular merit for reconciling religious scripture and scientific understanding. We can disagree about the conclusions drawn by Intelligent Design proponents, especially concepts like irreducible complexity, and recognize the social, cultural, and religious biases implicit in those conclusions, but they come out of the application of this specific synthesis framework.
Embracing Fallibility: The Future of Scripture
The history of religious experience, the nature of philosophical analysis, and the formation of scientific understanding all point to an innate curiosity about the universe and our place within it. Religious scriptures and traditions are one vehicle for trying to understand this curiosity, including things beyond our physical experience. Scientific understanding evolves out of natural philosophy as we develop new tools increase the range of our physical experience, which begins to challenge some of our religious understandings. All three may present different approaches to satisfying that curiosity, but they are all driven by that initial curiosity. As our scientific understanding of the universe continues to exponentially expand, there will come a point where our understanding of religious scripture must fundamentally change.
American author Ursula K Le Guin provides an excellent framework for transforming our understanding of religious scripture in her study of myth and archetype in science fiction. Le Guin sees two functions of myth as they relate to human experience. First, myths serve a rational/explanatory purpose for describing the world, just as scriptures serve for many religions. Second, myths serve as an expression of how humans relate to the world. The former is literal; the latter is allegorical or symbolic. (Le Guin, “Myth and Archetype in Science Fiction”, 68–69). Philo also saw this as the purpose of religious scripture: to describe the world (literally) and to explain how we should relate to it and each other (allegorical/symbolic). This is not to say that religious scriptures are myth, although this might appeal to the scientistic approach to allegorical interpretation. This is to say that the same framework for understanding myth may also be applied to religious scriptures and, perhaps in many ways, to all written output.
Two points are worth considering in understanding religious scripture with these two functions. First, disproving or contradicting the rational/explanatory purpose of religious scriptures need not also negate its purpose as an expression of how humans relate to the world. The scientistic framework oftentimes attempts to negate the whole of religious scripture based upon scientific understanding contradicting or disproving one part (or even multiple parts) of religious scripture. Ironically, this is often because the creationist framework adheres so strictly to an all-or-nothing literal interpretation or argues that disproving one part of scientific understanding somehow eradicates the whole of scientific understanding. Le Guin argues that “reductionism cuts both ways, after all”. (Le Guin, “Myth and Archetype in Science Fiction”, 69)
The second point worth considering is that by embracing fallibility, we can disregard the truth value of religious scripture as a rational/explanatory document and focus on its purpose as an expression of how humans relate to the world. This wouldn’t mean disregarding the entirety of religious scripture as a rational/explanatory document, but it would mean being willing to defer to scientific understanding in this respect when it comes many of the earliest stories, especially given the exponential and self-correcting nature of scientific understanding. By doing so, religious scripture can still be used to examine how humans relate to the world, and to consider claims about the metaphysical nature of the universe. Philo’s five key lessons from On the Creation relate almost exclusively to the metaphysical properties of God and our relationship to that deity, not about any real claims of how it was done and how long it took.
Embracing fallibility does place the modern theologian on shakier ground. There’s a certain logical comfort in being able to assume that religious scripture is literally true and infallible. We can sweep aside all the concerns about language and context and understanding and just focus on the words as printed on the page. But making religious scripture fallible makes scripture more flexible to adapt to advancements in scientific understanding, while still preserving their usefulness as historical documents and for understanding how we as humans relate to the world.
Le Guin summarizes this bifurcation elegantly:
“Myth is an expression of one of the several ways the human being, body/psyche, perceives, understands, and relates to the world. Like science, it is a product of a basic human mode of apprehension. To pretend that it can be replaced by abstract or quantitative cognition is to assert that the human being is, potentially or ideally, a creature of pure reason, a disembodied Mind. It might, indeed, be nice if we were all little bubbles of pure reason floating on the stream of time; but we aren’t. We are rational beings, but are also sensual, emotional, appetitive, ethical beings, driven by needs and reaching out for satisfactions which the intellect alone cannot provide. Where these other modes of being and doing are inadequate, the intellect should prevail. Where the intellect fails, and must always fail, unless we become disembodied bubbles, then one of the other modes must take over.” (Le Guin, “Myth and Archetype in Science Fiction”, 69)
Embracing fallibility is not just something necessary for religious scripture. We should recognize that there are some elements of the human experience, because of our contradictory and conflicting modes of being and doing, that simply cannot, or maybe should not, be fully explained by scientific understanding. We can use scientific understanding to help us describe those modes of being and doing, even draw insight into the human experience from those descriptions, but it remains a scientistic order of faith that scientific understanding is the only means of understanding the universe.
We should also embrace the true fallibility of scientific understanding as one of its greatest strengths. The self-correcting nature of scientific understanding works great in theory and over time, but it is also susceptible to the same cultural biases in practice as allegorical interpretation. Additionally, Philo’s treatises, based on the best philosophical and scientific understanding of his time and confidently argued, would be laughable to us today with his conceptions of only four physical elements, a geocentric universe, and other ideas we’ve revised or replaced today. Embracing scientific fallibility is to accept that our current scientific understanding may be as fundamentally flawed two millennia from now.
The synthesis approach to allegorical interpretation appears to be the best framework for managing the pressure that the exponential increase of scientific understanding is placing on religious scripture. Not only does this approach presume a give and take between scientific understanding and religious scripture, but effectively bifurcates the perceived purposes of religious scripture to preserve the elements appropriate to both modes of being and doing. The approach must be cognizant of both the limits of literal interpretations and the dangers of allegorical interpretation. Ironically, the expanding complexity of our scientific understanding of the universe becomes, to religiously minded people, further evidence of the role of God as creator. We can disagree about the existence of God or their role in Creation, if we can both accept the best scientific understanding for the creation of the universe as the best (but never complete) rational explanation.
Embracing fallibility furthers this positive feedback loop to encourage human discovery, not just scientific discovery, driven by our shared, innate curiosity. It does not mean we must scientifically investigate every religious idea found in scriptures, nor does it mean that we should treat religious scriptures in a wholly scientific or literal manner. The synthesis approach does better define the relationship between the two and acknowledges that scientific advancement is often inspired by those other modes of being and doing in the process. Rather than a struggle for primacy, forcing two different absolute truths into one framework, allegorical interpretation can become a true synthesis because both scientific understanding and religious scripture acknowledge and embrace fallibility to develop a willingness to change their understandings based upon our collective experience. Science can then continue to help us to explain the universe in ways that sacrosanct scriptures never could, and religions can use those same scriptures to help us consider our purpose and place within our changing universe beyond mere survival and reproduction.
Conclusion
Allegorical interpretation provides a framework for reconciling discrepancies between religious scriptures and scientific understanding. Philo of Alexandria used this method in the earliest parts of the First Century trying to reconcile the infallible truth of the Torah with the contemporary understanding of the world found within natural philosophy during his time. This process provided a means of reinterpreting scripture to suggest that theories of natural philosophy could be first found within scripture, but in the process utilizes four dangerous methods (cultural biases, numerology, etymology, shoehorning) to find that meaning, especially when running up against the limits of literal interpretations.
Philo’s method and approach provides the tools for considering the same conflict today between religious scriptures and scientific understanding. Philo’s willingness to defer to rational arguments, give primacy to some philosophical or scientific concepts, or to admit the text may have inherent flaws creates the possibility of transforming this process. Rather than assuming both religious scripture and scientific understanding are infallibly true, we can consider a synthesis approach to allegorical interpretation that assumes both religious scripture and scientific understanding are fallible. To accomplish this, we must bifurcate the purpose of religious scripture into its rational/explanatory purpose and its purpose in helping us understand how we relate to the world. By doing so, we allow each purpose to be governed by the proper modes of being and doing and help fully realize each purpose. This framework subsumes the rigid reconciliation of Philo’s approach, or the biased deconstructive approaches of our modern era, for a true synthesis of ideas to understand the origins of the universe and our place and purpose within it.
Works Cited
Dobzynski, Joseph Jr. “The Handmaid’s Tale: From Genesis to Gilead.” Medium.com, 24 Jan 2022, jdobzynski.medium.com/the-handmaids-tale-from-genesis-to-gilead-465ede9dd5fb.
Le Guin, Ursula K. The Language of the Night. HarperPerennial, 1993.
Philo. The Works of Philo: Complete and Unabridged. Translated by C.D. Yonge, Hendrickson Publishers, 1993.
Plato. The Republic. Translated by Desmond Lee, Penguin Books, 1987.
Seymour-Smith, Martin. The 100 Most Influential Books Ever Written: The History of Thought from Ancient Times to Today. Secaucus, Carol Publishing Group, 1998.
The New American Bible: Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1991.
Further Reading
Here are links to a few more resources or articles about Philo.
You can find most, if not all, of C.D. Yonge’s translations of Philo at the following resource. The translations are identical to the paper copy I read from what I can tell, although the formatting could use some work.
If you’re interested in some additional thoughts on my full reading of Philo, you can check out the following article where I reflect more concisely on allegorical interpretation, consider Philo’s contributions to the historical record, and provide a targeted reading list for folks based on interests.
Also, don’t forget to check out my in-depth look at interpretations of Hagar the Handmaid’s story in all three Abrahamic religions and by Margaret Atwood in her landmark novel, The Handmaid’s Tale.
