>From: "Robert Schneider" <rjschn39@bellsouth.net>
>
> Augustine applied what he called "the rule of charity" to the reading of
> a text. If the literal sense of the text seemed to violate that rule, he
> asserted that the text was to be read allegorically. I believe his example
> was God ordering Saul to totally wipe out the Amalekites, every man, woman,
> child, ox and ass. Augustine said that this and like incidents recorded in
> Scripture enjoin behavior that is contrary to this rule of charity, and
> therefore should not be interpreted literally as a guide to Christian life.
> Rather, they are to be pondered and interpreted allegorically: the truth of
> these passages for the Christian lay there rather than in the literal.
>
> Whatever one thinks of Augustine's hermeneutic on these matters, it is
> clear that he is wrestling with a real problem, the same problem many of us
> wrestle with on such passages, and he recognizes that there is some behavior
> described in the Bible that is not to be taken literally as prescriptions
> for Christian life.
Another option: "The (Christian) Bible is
a thoroughly human testimony to the authentic human experience of the
presence of the Sacred -- specifically, God, as experienced by the ancient
Hebrews and the early Christian community."
Therefore, some of those human perceptions of God (or humanly constructed
portraits of God) could have been seriously deficient and, while they were
authentically representative of historic beliefs (not allegories) they need
not be taken as normative in our time and culture.
Howrad Van Till
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