Page 25 - Through New Eyes

Interpreting the World Design 17
Fiilh, Biblical symbolism must be interpreted in terms of Biblical
presuppositions and philosophy. In the early Church, the school of
Alexandria became notorious for allegorical and symbolic ex-
egesis; but their problem did not lie in the fact that they studied
Biblical imagery. The problem was that they were trying to
squeeze Biblical teachings into the categories of Platonic phi-
losophy, and to do so they had to interpret the Bible allegori-
cally. The Bible has its own presuppositions and its own phi-
losophy of type and allegory; we do not need to borrow any-
thing from Plato. 15
Finally, since so little work has been done in this area until
recently, the student of Biblical imagery must be alert to the work of other
scholars. Exegesis must never be done in a vacuum.

Conclusion
The Bible is not written in terms of modern science or phi-
losophy. To a great extent, the Bible is written in the pregnant
language of imagery. Genesis 1 describes the creation of the
world in the language of appearance, and this sets up for us a
visual, worldview grid. The world and its contents are not a
bunch of random facts but were created with a design and pur-
pose. The world and all that it contains were made, in part, as
pointers to God. Thus, in some sense they “symbolize” God’s at-
tributes to us. Because of sin, we tend not to see this, and our
worldview is askew. The Bible, however, will help us see God’s
world through new eyes.