Biblical Hermeneutics

PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL HERMENETICS ; M. M. NINAN
anthropomorphisms is thoroughly Palestinian, and reminds one of Targum and Septuagint.
Similarly, The Wisdom of Solomon, another Apocryphal book of the same period, is not
specifically Hellenic in its allegorical symbolism. The explanation of the heavenly ladder in
Jacob's vision, as a symbol of Divine Providence and the super-sensual world, is just as little
Hellenic as the Biblical narrative itself, the sense of which is very correctly given (Wisdom, x.
10). The influence of a Palestinian Midrash, preserved in the Mishnah (R. H. iii. 8), is evident
in the explanation of the serpent (Num. xxi. 9), as a "symbol of salvation, while the salvation
itself came from God" (Wisdom, xvi. 5). These and similar interpretations are so clearly of
Palestinian origin that it would be wrong to assume any foreign influence for them. The literal
reality of the Law and of the Biblical history is so strongly adhered to by the author of The
Wisdom of Solomon, coming as it does from Pharisaic circles, that one can hardly speak of his
treatment as an allegorization of the Bible.
The Allegorical Interpretation of the Law in the Aristeas Letter exhibits Hellenic influence
more decidedly. It seeks to give ethical motives for all the ritual and ceremonial laws. On the
one hand, the flesh of birds of prey is declared unclean, it says, in order to teach how
violence and injustice defile the soul; on the other, that of animals which chew the cud and
divide the hoof is permitted. For the former characteristic typifies the duty of invoking God
frequently; and the latter signifies the distinction between right and wrong, and the division
to be maintained between Israel and nations practising abominations.
Radical Allegorism.
A further step, but an inevitable one, was taken by those allegorists of whom Philo writes
("De Migratione Abrahami," xvi.; ed. Mangey, i. 450), that they cut loose entirely from any
observance of the Law, and saw in the records of Jewish revelation nothing but a
presentation of higher philosophical truths. Such an extreme step could only provoke
reaction; and the result was that many would have nothing whatever to do with Allegorical
Interpretation, justly seeing in it a danger to practical Judaism. These anti-allegorists were
specially represented in Palestine, where the warning was heard (about 50 B.C.) against
those "evil waters" to be avoided by the young scholars "abroad," i.e. Egypt . Nor were there
wanting in Alexandria itself many determined opponents of this tendency (Philo, "De
Somniis," i. 16; ed. Mangey, i. 635). But the extremists on both sides, allegorists as well as
anti-allegorists, were in the minority; for most teachers held steadfastly to the ancestral faith
as far as actual practise was concerned, and endeavored only theoretically to harmonize
Judaism with the Hellenic philosophy by means of allegory. Philo informs us ("De Vita
Contemplativa," III. ii. 475) that his predecessors in this allegorical tendency (from whom he
quotes eighteen times—see the list in Siegfried's "Philo," p. 26) had committed their
teachings to writing; but beyond those quotations nothing has been preserved. The following
is an illustration: "Men versed in natural philosophy explain the history of Abraham and Sarah
in an allegorical manner with no inconsiderable ingenuity and propriety. The man here
[Abraham] is a symbolical expression for the virtuous mind, and by his wife is meant virtue,
for the name of his wife is Sarah ["princess"], because there is nothing more royal or more
worthy of regal preeminence than virtue" ("De Abrahamo," xx. 8; ed. Mangey, ii. 15).
Josephus.
It would not be just, in the absence of striking proof, to maintain that Josephus, who in his
preface to the "Antiquitates" speaks of the literal sense and the allegorical, was influenced by
Alexandrianism in general or by Philo in particular (Siegfried's "Philo," p. 270). His symbolical
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