Salvaging the Book of Mormon

[SeattleUte]

Paul told you how to read scripture:

For it is written that Abraham had two sons,
one by a slave and one by a free woman.
But the son of the slave was born according to
the flesh, the son of the free woman through promise.
Now this is an allegory: these women are two covenants.
One is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery:
she is Hagar . .. she corresponds to the present Jerusalem,
for she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem above
is free, and she is our mother.... Now we, brethren, like Isaac
are children of promise.... But what does scripture say?
"Cast out the slave and her son; for the son of the slave shall
not inherit with the son of the free woman."

Galations 4:22-28. Paul says read scripture not for literally rendered facts, but for the hidden meaning, for the subtext, which is what matters. He's calling the story of Abraham and his two wives and sons, one free and blessed the other a slave and not so blessed, an allegory. This amounts, among other things, to a frank admission that Bible stories are fictional. Websters defines allegory as: "1: the expression by means of symbolic fictional figures and actions of truths or generalizations about human existence ; also : an instance (as in a story or painting) of such expression."

I'm not saying I agree with the hidden meaning that Paul discerns any more than I agree that the story literally happened. But in general I think he and Philo and other really smart classically educated Jews who conceived Christianity rightly found such a technque for reading scripture to be its saving grace as sacred text (apart from its quality as art).