Look at the Dummies book on world history and you get clued in quick as to how it happened that the vast majority of Christianity takes an allegorical approach to the Bible.

Under the heading Replacing Homer with the Bible is the summary, “Another reason why furious interpretations and counter-interpretations marked Christianity from the beginning: Look at the places where Christianity sprang up. Christianity filtered through a world marked by Hellenistic (Greek-like) traditions, by the Greek teachings that followed Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Alexander the Great’s empire.

“Early centers of the Church included Alexandria, Egypt, which was a capital of Greek scholarship, and Rome, where so many Hellenistic philosophies rubbed up against one another for a long time. . . As Greek thought shifted to Christian thought, the Bible took the place of Homer’s poems and the Greek-Roman pantheon as a general context for philosophical questioning.”

*****

As my preacher, Richard Jordan, reminded in a Sunday sermon just the other week, “Before the ink was dry on Paul’s epistles, efforts were under way to syncretize the truth he taught with Greek philosophy. The most influential school emphasizing this approach was Alexandria, Egypt. It’s the place where almost all of the corruptions of the Word of God available today originate from.”

World History for Dummies reports that around 255 BC, “Eratosthenes becomes librarian at Alexandria, Egypt, in charge of the largest storehouse of knowledge in the world.”

Under the subhead Putting philosophy to practical use, the book states, “If you get the impression that Greeks after Alexander the Great didn’t do anything but philosophize; remember that much of what came under the broad heading of philosophy (Greek for love of wisdom) had practical applications. Geometry, for example, came in handy for surveying and building.

“Incredible buildings went up during the Hellenistic Age. Among them was a fantastic marble lighthouse in the harbor of Alexandria, Egypt. Alexandria became a center for Greek-style learning. The library there held 700,000 volumes.

“The librarian in charge of that great storehouse of information was a Greek named Eratosthenes, who was also a geographer. He worked out a formula for measuring the circumference of the Earth, measuring shadows in Syene, Egypt, and in Alexandria at the same time—at noon on the summer solstice.

“Then he used the difference between the shadows, multiplied by the distance between the two cities, to calculate the planet’s size. Another Greek at Alexandria reportedly built some kind of steam engine, although nobody knew what to use it for. That thread of knowledge would be picked up in England quite a few centuries later.”

*****

When it comes to the Bible, Alexandria is where the allegorical method of interpreting Scripture has its roots.

As Jordan explains in a newly published classroom companion textbook for his international Grace School of the Bible, entitled The Fundamentals of Dispensationalism: The Key to a Strategic Grasp of the Bible, “The spiritualizing of Scriptures by the allegorical method is the mother of all abominations in the earth.

“The allegorical method of interpretation comes from a Jewish fellow by the name of Filo. Filo tried to take Greek philosophy and unite it with the Old Testament Jewish Scriptures. It was picked up in church history by a man named Origen . . .

“What is Egypt a type of in the Bible? The world. The allegorical method of interpretation of Scripture is associated with Alexandria, Egypt. When we study manuscript evidence, you will see this show up with Origen as the first Bible corrector, the first polluter of the Word of God.

“He not only develops a false method of interpretation and introduces it into Christendom, he also develops the corruptions to the Word of God that are available today in the New International Version, etc. that leave verses out and add verses and change words around to change meanings. Origen is the source of that . . .

“According to the historians, the town of Antioch (in Syria) had the opposing school of interpretation from Alexandria (that used the Grammatical/Historical method). Antioch has the opposing Bible text also.

“What do we know about Antioch? Do you remember that the disciples were first called ‘Christians’ at Antioch? In Acts 13, it was the church at Antioch that sends Paul out with the gospel. He reports back to Antioch all through his ministry. If you wanted to find out how to understand and interpret the Bible, would you go to Egypt or Antioch? I’d go to Antioch!

“I just explained to you how to read church history in the first three centuries and there is not one church historian that ever lived who would say that was a sound method. They would have said it was a biased method of interpretation. And to that, I would say, you are right.

“The problem is, it is a good bias. Philip Schaff writes his church history from a bias. He’s the great authority in the Encyclopedia Britannica on church history, yet he writes from the bias of the allegorical method. We write from the Grammatical/Historical bias.

“The split between the two methods was created by those people trying to amalgamate their understanding of Scripture with Greek philosophy. They tried to make the Bible equal with human viewpoint and vice versa and join them together. The culprit that caused this was education.

“Are we against education? Of course not. It is about human wisdom versus divine revelation. In the Bible, the way God expects you to understand His Word is literally. Always make the words on the page the issue.”

*****

In the 3^rd and 4^th centuries, a fight between these two power centers among the Church councils led to Antioch losing the political battle.

“They turned to the Greeks as the model by which they trained and that’s where the allegorical method of studying came from; it’s the Greek method of interpretation,” explains Jordan. “Among the things picked up here is what they call virtue and that becomes the great discussion. You know, with the Greek philosophers—Plato, Aristotle—virtue was the big issue with them. What is the supreme good?

“Virtue is what? It’s your lifestyle; what are the rules that order the things of your life? All of a sudden, things change from the assimilation of sound Bible doctrine that produces life to the external lifestyle and the academics that would produce . . . to where you can say, ‘This is it—we meet the rules.’

“This is where the academic life began and, leaving the Pauline method (of Bible study), you enter into the academic world. This is where the structures of the university system—

the academics and so forth—start and you have the rise of that.

*****

“Now, when you get into Romanism, you get what’s called monasticism; men going into the monasteries. The idea now is you’re not just going to seek virtue, but you’re going to be celibate from the world off in a monastery and find the supreme good through isolation. You’re going to get rid of worldliness by not being in the world.

“Now, can just anybody do that? If everybody can’t do it, you then have to have a special class of superior people. That’s where the clergy comes from. See how it all develops?!

“You now need to go out of culture to a place to learn it and therefore you’re not learning among the people! Paul says in Thessalonians, ‘Know them that labor among you and over you in the Lord.’ People in leadership of an assembly are people who are among you—not off on a hilltop somewhere.

“When that developed it was these guys (from the institutional Church) that took it over. And so you have this whole system where you had this special class of people and this runs really from the 5^th to the 15^th Century. That’s called the Dark Ages.

“There were only two places to get any learning—one was in these segregated places and the other was in the king’s court. And if you want to see what happens when things go that route, the Dark Ages is what you’re looking for.”

*****

With the Reformation, or the age of the Renaissance, running from about the 15^th to the 18^th century, there’s a return to training people outside of monasteries, but what’s going to be used to train people is the writings of the (Greek-Alexandrian influenced) Reformers.

Jordan explains, “You ever talk to anybody called a Calvinist? Why would you call them a Calvinist? Because they follow the writings of Calvin (who followed Augustinian doctrine). You ever talk to anybody who tells you they’re part of the Reformed Church? Why do you call them the Reformed Church? Because they’re following the writings of the Reformers. Catechisms, creeds . . .

“There’s a big movement today to go back to the ‘confessional church.’ They’re talking about the Reformation churches that have these great creeds. The Westminster Confession of faith and the Helvitic Confession of faith. The doctrinal statement becomes the standard. For Paul, what was the standard? The Book.”

(Editor’s Note: To be continued . . . )