> The test is not really to non-literal interpretations in general but
> non-literal interpretations of early Genesis. I don't think anyone takes
> literally Psalm 17:8 [...]
> Thus the test is
> to the specific portions of the Genesis which are said to be so
> linguistically clearly to be taken non-literally.
Another minor clarification: the question is not, I think, whether
early commentators offered non-literal readings, but whether they
offered such readings to the exclusion of the "literal" (I would
rather use "narrative") sense. One kind or another of "spiritual"
interpretations of OT narratives were common among the Fathers, and
eventually became the norm. Most, however, at least continued to
pay lip service to the literal truth of the narratives. The more
extreme allegorizers did not. Since Origen has been mentioned, I'll
point out that he, at least, explicitly rejected the literal truth of
the creation story: "To what person of intelligence, I ask, will
the account seem logically consistent that says there was a 'first day'
and a 'second' and 'third', in whch also 'evening' and 'morning'
are named, without a sun, without a moon, and without stars, and
even in the case of the first day without a heaven? And who will be
found simple enough to believe that like some farmer 'God planted
trees in the garden of Eden, in the east' and that He planted 'the
tree of life' in it, that is a visible tree that could be touched,
so that someone could eat of this tree with corporeal teeth and
gain life, and, further, could eat of another tree and receive
knowledge 'of good and evil'. . . . [I]t is quite easy for everyone
who wishes to collect from the holy Scriptures things that are
written as though they were really done, but cannot be believed to
have happened appropriately and reasonably according to the narrative
meaning." (_On First Principles_, ch. 3, trans. Rowan A. Greer)
There were others who adopted similar views: Gregory of Nyssa, for
example, or the author of th _Epistle of Barnabas_ (although I
have no idea whether either wrote anything about Genesis). Others,
in turn, rejected such an approach: Theodore of Mopsuestia made a
point of insisting on the narrative truth of the creation story,
presumably in response to Origen(*). I don't think such examples will
give you what you want, however, which is an unbiased interpretation
of Genesis. Rather, they are still examples of interpretations
coming out of biases; different sets of biases than the ones we're
used to, but biases nonetheless. Origen didn't adopt allegorical
readings because of the influence of science, but he did adopt them
because of the influence of his intellectual environment: Alexandria
had a long tradition of highly allegorical reading, going back
through Philo and, ultimately, to attempts to find allegorical
meanings in Homer. Similarly, other early commentators had their
own expectations about how to read certain kinds of texts, and I
think, in the end, when you study differing interpretations you're
likely to learn more about the expectations of the interpreters than
about what an unbiased interpretation might look like. (Of course,
exposure to different interpreters is still a good thing, since it
helps us re-examine our own expectations and assumptions.)
* This tidbit comes from vol II of _The Cambridge History of the Bible_,
which has a nice, brief summary of the early development of exegesis.
Steve Schaffner
sschaff@slac.stanford.edu