Allegory – problem or solution? – 4.21-31 – Part II

The pericope is organized. It begins with a question (v. 21) addressed to the Galatians, as Paul has done previously (3:1-5; 4:9, 15-16), identified by the second person plural pronoun (you). Then the apostle himself answers the question (v. 22-30) using the allegory of the biblical text. The conclusion (v. 31) comes in the form of affirmation in which Paul himself includes himself, indicated by the first person plural pronoun (we, implied).

Since the heart of the discussion in the letter is the validity and interpretation of the Law, Paul returns to it with a question. He does not discuss the interpretation of the Law, but its very reason for being and, therefore, its relevance to the present time of its readers. For this, he takes as his starting point the high degree of reverence that the Galatians had for the Law (“those who want to be under the law”). His question is provocative: “Do you not hear the law?”. “Listening” reveals the practice of contact with the Scriptures at that time since there were practically no private copies of the sacred texts. Contact with them took place, as a rule, at meetings where liturgical readings were held. But the idea is also that it is not enough to listen but to understand, and apply.

In answering his question (v. 22-30) Paul enters the field of adversaries. After all, the legalists had taught and convinced the Galatian Christians to submit to the Law. Now the apostle enters this terrain to question the real understanding of the Law by the Galatians. And he does so using allegory. What is her role? Leave aside the argument that aims to convince, since it brings with it the idea that you beat the other (since he has doubts about the validity of this method – v. 20). The objective now is to lure the opponent through another path. It's treating him as an equal, as someone who knows. According to Betz, Paul “leads the Galatians to find the truth for themselves” (Hermeneia, Galatians, p. 240).

For Paul, at this moment “hearing” the Law means understanding its allegorical meaning.

In his exposition, Paul freely quotes the OT. After all, in saying that Abraham had two sons (v. 22) he omits others (cf. Gen. 25:1-6). But these do not matter for his allegory. More important than the children are their mothers: Hagar and Sarah (who are not mentioned but implied). They present the duality: freedom versus slavery, which is a theme developed in the letter (2.4; 3.26-28). Women represent two covenants, two ways in which God deals with human beings.

V. 22 and 23 present the selection of OT themes. From v. 24 Paul introduces the allegorical interpretation. Birth according to “the flesh” in a natural way and birth according to “the promise” supernaturally have meaning for Paul. There's the allegory. You have to understand that it comes out of nowhere. The text allows for this opening. It is as if the text itself asks us: what does what I have said mean? The one that comes from natural birth means the life that Israel had experienced and is experiencing at that moment, which according to Paul is one of slavery. This covenant comes from the slave Hagar and is linked to Mount Sinai, where the Law was given to Moses. Isaac, in turn, is the son of promise, free, before the Law and, therefore, without need to submit to it.

The conclusion that the Galatians are “children of promise, like Isaac” (v. 28) is not new. It was already stated in 3:29 in terms of the relationship with Christ. The novelty is that this fact implies the denial of filiation linked to Hagar and the slavery brought by the Law.

the v. 29 brings another application of the allegory. As in the past, when the one born under the flesh persecuted the one born according to the promise, now it is again. Christians are persecuted by Jews and legalistic Christians. What to do? Deny the slave's son and his covenant (v. 30). The two alliances are irreconcilable. So indirectly Paul is saying that Judaizers should not be part of the fellowship of Galatian Christians.

According to Betz, v. 31 concludes the block of 3.1-4.31 on the theme of freedom, which will be resumed from 5.1.

Paul includes himself in the conclusion (“we are”). He is also the son of the woman/free alliance. Why do you do this? Certainly to seek identification and proximity with the Galatians. By working the OT texts allegorically, developing statements that the Galatians would not only understand but also agree with, the apostle forges bonds of identity and communion.

Allegory – Problem or Solution? – 4.21-31 – Part I

Allegory is a serious hermeneutical problem. And this is from the beginning of the history of Christian interpretation. After all, a method that seems devoid of method or foundations is bound to be a problem. At least for historicist hermeneutics.

Paul concludes the previous section (4:20) by saying that he is “perplexed about you”, an expression that contains a high degree of discouragement. It seems that he has great doubts about his power of persuasion. Even the relational argument developed in 4.12-20 seems to have no effect. What to do? Use biblical allegory. For Paul, at least, it is the last and most important argument to be used. If we remember that he is concluding Probation, the moment in the letter when he tries to prove his position with the use of various arguments, it is surprising, at least to us Christian interpreters, that he has reserved the allegory for the end.

There is no space for in-depth discussions of the allegory in this post, but there is a basic question that we can address.

Historicist hermeneutics/exegesis presupposes the premise that biblical texts must testify to the reality of the events they describe. From this point of view, narrative texts refer the reader to the historical facts that are their foundation. And argumentative texts refer the reader to the historical context that produces the relationship between sender and recipient. Therefore, texts are always and indissolubly linked to the facts to which they bear witness.

Given this theoretical stance, any proposal that sees the text transcend the role of witness is seen negatively. The text must be a servant of history. If not, it becomes dangerous, as it opens up to uncontrollable meanings, as historicist hermeneutics would say. That is why the allegorical interpretation so present in the first centuries of Christianity was denied, mainly by the Protestant Reformation and by contemporary fundamentalist circles.

Is this concern with the liberation of meaning from biblical texts healthy? Perhaps, but the problem is inadequate or at least limiting the conception of text that such a perspective contains. After all, all text transcends. No text ends in itself. Every text is a starting point. And even historicists must agree with this statement. After all, for them, biblical texts are a starting point for historical reconstruction. This means that, for historicist hermeneutics, the text also transcends. The problem is that it is a limited and closed opening. The text leaves itself to immediately become a vassal of reconstructions, hypothetical, by the way, of historical facts.

Every text, from a pragmatic point of view, is unfinished. It brings proposals of meanings linked to its author. But understanding, which involves more than first sense, is open to the reader. This is more than a normal aspect of literary texts. Every reader, during and after reading, reflects on the meaning(s). The degree of approximation to what the author intended depends on numerous factors. Of course, the reader can reach conclusions that are different from what the text presents. But, in general, all reading presents a relationship between text and the constituent aspects of the reader's world that influence its understanding.

Therefore, when we read a work, we are thrown by it into several levels of reflection. In other words, the text transcends itself. And it's good that it is. The biblical text does not escape this process. As we read the Bible, we are also thrown forward, not backward, in search of reflections that make sense to us.

I say all this so that we understand that the allegory widely practiced in the beginnings of Christianity, and Galatians by Paul is part of this process of relationship between readers and texts. With the allegory, the interpreter asks himself about the expansion and deepening of the meaning of several texts. Is the text linked only to the past? Does it only concern narratives of events that occurred with this or that biblical man or woman? Not. Narratives are bridges to connect meanings and experiences.

I conclude by recalling that the allegory does not deny the historical aspect of the biblical text. We are not faced with an option: either the historical sense or the allegorical sense. This aporia is not true. Again, allegory transcends the historical sense but does not deny it.