"Bible miracles are allegorical". What does that really mean?

[sonoman]

No, but you are. Messing with my post, rearranging it to create a reason for you to be confused. Not very intellectually honest but typical for you in your continuing efforts to attack my theology. I gave the website address, http://biomystic.org/jesussacrifice.htm that details the "biomystical code" within the Bible that reveals a biological basis for overturning the male territorial battling behavior pattern by an Alpha changing the game as Jesus' sacrifice of power for love of humanity did for all time.

[youkrst]

I wonder when you say that the whole Bible is to be read as intended as allegory, how much of the book this really applies to.

i see it a little as if someone found a james bond book in a thousand years time and someone said "this is the history of a fascinating man who worked in espionage."

later on someone else says "but it could be a novel, there are too many hot women."

the response is, "fool, an aston martin existed we have the schematics, this is history!"

the point being that even if there is non allegorical content in the bible it is only there to serve the numero uno purpose of encoding spiritual/psychological concepts.

like hitch used to say about socrates, whether he existed or was platos sock puppet doesn't matter it is the content of the teaching that i value. (paraphrase)

i was reading where historians got frustrated with hindu writers because they would just put any current king into the same old story as if it didnt matter, the historians would be "you CANT do that" and the old writers would be "but it's beside the point we are just updating the story to be more relevant context" it's the connotation that matters the denotation is just the shell we put it in.

Most obviously, there large swathes of the OT that ask to be read as history, whether they are that or not.

yeah thats the thing, it's not history, it reads like history, it's allegory, spiritual/psychological allegory.

David and Goliath for example is obvious metaphor, dont we all face a giant or two in our lives.

but the whole larger context is as well

Israel fights the Philistines>Spirit fights the flesh>desire to help other person fights desire to be lazy

amalekites persistently resist israel>flesh persistently resists spirit>sexual lust resists consideration of girlfriends parents who may walk in at any moment!

so as you travel the world you see time and time again the exact same story but now instead of christ it's krishna or on another continent quetzocoatl etc etc

But looking at Acts and Letters, and without being intimately familiar with these, I can't see that they lend themselves well to allegory, at least not in any wholesale way.

i'm not saying there are no straight bits but that the straight bits are just some extraneous stuff around the hugely allegorical tome

even in the bits that aren't allegory, they are just the least important parts the boring details around the context, so the fact that the writer says

Am not I an apostle? am not I free? Jesus Christ our Lord have I not seen? my work are not ye in the Lord? 2 if to others I am not an apostle -- yet doubtless to you I am; for the seal of my apostleship are ye in the Lord.

seems non allegorical and isn't but at the same time you realise that Paul hadn't seen Jesus but in a vision had seen him, others heard him, in another passage a different description etc

and who is this jesus is he known according to flesh and blood?

Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer.

see what i'm driving at, even if there are non allegorical bits they are simply part of a huge allegory, like bonds aston martin, aston martins are real but they only serve to beef up the fictional context with a better scenario, hot wheels for the hot guy with all the hot moves and hot women.

who is an archetype which is why his story persists.





yes it seems to me an effort was made to over historicize or literalise the canon in it's formation, the books rejected were most obviously allegorical and books accepted were most history sounding, and of course there really were early christians so a letter can really be a letter but look at the content of the epistle and the clues to allegorical reading are plentiful

Who serves as a soldier at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its grapes? Who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk?

Do I say this merely from a human point of view? Doesn't the Law say the same thing?

For it is written in the Law of Moses: "Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain." Is it about oxen that God is concerned?

_________________________


whoever wrote those verses in first corinthians chap. 9 v 7-9 was well versed in allegorical application of scripture.

here he goes again

What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people."

oh a temple isnt a temple it's a metaphor for us, WE ARE THE TEMPLE!!

to this writer the literal temple is just a metaphor for us!

to be literally minded is to never understand the bible.

[Robert Tulip]

looking at Acts and Letters, and without being intimately familiar with these, I can't see that they lend themselves well to allegory, at least not in any wholesale way.

'Wholesale' is precisely what the allegory is in Paul's Epistles. The basic premise of a historical Jesus in Paul's Letters is symbolic, an imaginary idea invented as fiction. Everything built upon an allegorical premise is also allegorical.

In Paul's few meagre references to the life of Jesus (born of a woman of the seed of David) there is no Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth or Galilee. The tiny ambiguous mentions are readily explained within a symbolic reading. For example 'seed of David' could mean the Nazarene community. Paul shows no dependence on any teachings transmitted from Jesus, and never justifies any teaching by citing the life and lessons of Christ. The closest thing is deeply symbolic ideas such as the 'Lord's Supper'. Paul's Jesus is allegory for the eternal Christ, a purely imaginary spirit.

The construction of the Jesus Myth by Mark is a sublime peak of literature. The relation between the Epistles and the Gospels remains contested by real scholars (ie non-Apologists) in terms of chronology and dependence. About the only thing that is certain is that no evidence of a historical Jesus will emerge, because the historical tale from the Gospels is fiction. The real basis of the Jesus story is pure allegory about how earth connects to and reflects heaven.

[grizzlyman]

youkrst suggested some reading material related to allegory and ended with:

'bed is symbol for physical body that the soul "sleeps" in
wake up!'


I am not sure of the inference. However, in my waking moments, I have read a little A B Kuhn, J Campbell, J Harrison, B Bauer, E Gibbon and others. Some, but by no means all, attempt to squeeze allegorical references into tenuous, social, ideological or historical connections. On the other hand, astrological and spiritualising ideologues continue to confuse our common sense with fanciful symbolic connections that suit their irrational moments of 'inspiration'. Thankfully, miracles can be rationalised within nature.

The eBook 'Miraclescam' takes the allegorical concept back to its roots. It traces the development of spiritual belief from its prehistoric natural beginning, through the development of mythology, to the flawed, supernatural understanding of today. The author translates several miracle stories back to their original meaning and includes a 200+ 'words toolkit' that enables readers to interpret the original meaning (generic) of any miracle story that may pique their interest. The book shows how and why miracle stories are true while the 'supernatural' events they contain are false, and is available with a free read of the intro at: http://www.miraclescam.com

[johnson1010]

Sonoman:

This was the Acts and the Epistles and meaning of Jesus' sacrifice that overthrows the otherwise animal nature of males especially to war for territorial gain and control in that funny 11th, (Aquarian) position near the lastborn, like David, but not like Jesus who takes the firstborn's fall from self empowerment and self reward to establish the sel up to exceed the first, i.e. there being a sort of curse on the firstborn to suffer deprivation, the full extent in Jesus' case, in order to establish the human social role of males as heads through the whole Bible, one that was both biological, involving the firstborn son's greater share of inherited abilities, and yet spiritually opposed theology of the last born becoming symbolic codes. I've certainly quite a bit of astrological coding and I've just begun to look seriously in the last couple of years driven by the self-sacrifice icon awakened in me at my fall from self empowerment.

Look… you’ve got to start making coherent thoughts out of this stuff. If English is not your first language you should try to articulate short and precise sentences that set out clearly what you are thinking.

It may make perfect sense to you, but let me try to explain what this looks like to me.

The majority of this is one sentence. You start off talking about one idea “this was the acts etc… that overthrows a man’s animal nature, especially to war for gain.” End sentence. That’s a whole thought that should be set aside from the rest of this. Then we move on to something about star signs firstborns and lastborns and how this relates to Jesus. You need to clarify what this is supposed to mean and wrap that up before moving on. And you should certainly do that in a separate sentence. Now move on to what you are saying about establishing human social roles and clarify what you are talking about with the juxtaposition of biological and spiritual near the end of this sentence. Then possibly another whole thought having to do with birth order and symbolic codes.

Part of the difficulty I have in dealing with your posts is the incoherent structure of the language. I can’t tell what it is you are trying to talk about half the time, and when I sit down to really try to puzzle it all out I come up with what I consider to be rubbish. If you are going to annoy me with idiocy, do it concisely.

It may be you have perfectly legitimate points to argue, but I have been unable to find them, hidden as they are in this babble.

[youkrst]

none of that (my posts) was particularly directed at you grizzly, i was simply meaning that in case someone hadn't noticed, when the ancients say something like

Arise on thy bed and come forth!

that it doesn't mean what it appears to mean in denotation but has a very definite connotation.

they wanted us to wake up to the better us within, of course whether we agree or even care (i'm sure you do) is entirely up to us.

a lot of people (not you of course) still read the writings of old esotericists as if they mean what the literal reading says, obviously once you've studied them a bit (as i'm sure you have) you realise they usually have a connotation, a hidden meaning, a metaphor. it's just a matter of learning the symbols.

i typed those posts when exceedingly tired as usual so apologies if they come off as a little terse, i am usually that abrupt with myself and forget that others may misinterpret my tone (it is the internet after all) i'll try and use more emoticons to lighten the tone if i can remember.

[DWill]

looking at Acts and Letters, and without being intimately familiar with these, I can't see that they lend themselves well to allegory, at least not in any wholesale way.

'Wholesale' is precisely what the allegory is in Paul's Epistles. The basic premise of a historical Jesus in Paul's Letters is symbolic, an imaginary idea invented as fiction. Everything built upon an allegorical premise is also allegorical.

In Paul's few meagre references to the life of Jesus (born of a woman of the seed of David) there is no Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth or Galilee. The tiny ambiguous mentions are readily explained within a symbolic reading. For example 'seed of David' could mean the Nazarene community. Paul shows no dependence on any teachings transmitted from Jesus, and never justifies any teaching by citing the life and lessons of Christ. The closest thing is deeply symbolic ideas such as the 'Lord's Supper'. Paul's Jesus is allegory for the eternal Christ, a purely imaginary spirit.

The construction of the Jesus Myth by Mark is a sublime peak of literature. The relation between the Epistles and the Gospels remains contested by real scholars (ie non-Apologists) in terms of chronology and dependence. About the only thing that is certain is that no evidence of a historical Jesus will emerge, because the historical tale from the Gospels is fiction. The real basis of the Jesus story is pure allegory about how earth connects to and reflects heaven.

I'm trying just to preserve some meaning in the use of the word 'allegory.' The word usually defines a type of narrative in which characters or sometimes actions stand for abstract qualities or perhaps parallel a different narrative. Then the word is also used to describe aspects of a narrative that are thought to accommodate symbolic as well as literal interpretation. When I hear that Acts is an allegory, I don't know what this means. Does it mean that in places symbols are used? It can't be true that the entire narrative has a shadow meaning, that as the Apostles go from place to place performing miracles and teaching the multitudes how Christ was pre-ordained by Jewish scriptures, we're meant to see something else going on. In this book also, needless to say, it's more than clear that the writer isn't talking about a mythic or metaphorical Jesus.

Looking at the Letters, they aren't allegories even if this Christ Jesus Paul rather madly proclaims didn't exist. They're about his efforts to organize and discipline various congregations. They contain a lot of his theology. I can't see why he would have expected his audience to allegorize this theology, or whether it even makes sense to speak of theology as allegory. It has already gone through the metaphysical wringer.

The best determination is made simply by reading these little books and judging the experience. Use the quacks like a duck test to decide if we have allegories here.

[Robert Tulip]

Use the quacks like a duck test to decide if we have allegories here.

Paul's Jesus does not quack like a duck, in the sense of describing a real person. He exists nowhere and has almost no biography. Paul is silent about any knowledge of the Historical Jesus character described by the Gospels.

If it waddles and quacks like a spirit, it is a spirit. The brief mentions in the Epistles of any life details of Christ read as allegory for the imagined presence on earth of the divine spirit of God. They do not read as evidence that there actually was an historical individual person named Jesus Christ.

The allegorical intent is well explained by Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton University, in her book The Gnostic Paul. Pagels argues that Paul's Epistles are systematically written at two levels, giving an esoteric deep meaning for initiates and an exoteric surface meaning for the ignorant. The exoteric surface is allegory for the real esoteric meaning.

When I hear that Acts is an allegory, I don't know what this means.

Acts is a late work that appears designed to consolidate the historicist fiction as fact. Its author may well believe the Gospels are historical. It provides a whole biography for Paul whose reliability is dubious, perhaps fanciful. Acts may be the least allegorical book in the New Testament.

[youkrst]

In this book also, needless to say, it's more than clear that the writer isn't talking about a mythic or metaphorical Jesus.

yeah but i think it's important to remember that before the literalists took over this was basically a mystery religion.

ie. Jesus is first presented to the initiate as a literal wonder working messiah and then later revealed within as an aspect of self, the new man.

as in "it is the spirit that makes alive, the flesh profits nothing"

or "the letter kills but the spirit gives life"

or better yet

When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. (literally denotation outer physical) When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.(moved on to connotation inner spiritual)

literalists always want an outer historic jesus, a more mature understanding moves on to the proper inner meaning, but the early church stopped at the outer stage. persecuting the living daylights out of anyone who wanted a metaphorical interpretation. (kill the damned heretics, and they did)

[sonoman]

"Acts is a late work that appears designed to consolidate the historicist fiction as fact. Its author may well believe the Gospels are historical. It provides a whole biography for Paul whose reliability is dubious, perhaps fanciful. Acts may be the least allegorical book in the New Testament."

I dunno about that: As a Christian visionary myself and one who finds himself mirroring in some ways the first Stephen's run in with authorities who didn't want to hear any blasphemous heresy about this new Jesus Christ guy, I still can't see these writings as reports of real events. The Pentecost deal is certainly fiction which is interesting to me because of my belief that God is resanctifying prophesy through my spiritual activism, one of which is the Paxcalibur mission in which Paxcalibur, unlike the Pentecost story in Acts that no one can ever prove to be true historical account, the Paxcalibur miracle of "speaking" God's message to for all humanity as we enter the New Age, without need of any language on earth in order to communicate clearly God's new Word of God that needs no words, has been documented. Pax exists. 500 Nazarean Christians can vouch for the Pentecost-like experience. I exist, got a social security number and utility bills to prove it.