I hold that when plain meaning is clear no other meaning is to be sought. It might take the Holy Spirit to persuade us to pay attention to what is written in plain text in front of us, and sometimes the plain meaning must be modified by the context, both broader and immediate, but to go beyond the plain meaning is not something that the text recommends except, IMO when it specifically says so, as in when it announces something as a parable.
Pesha Remez Drash and Sod? they sound like a group of goblins or orcs
As for me i won't touch allegorical reading of any passage with a barge poll.
I recall that one school, that of Alexandria, I think, of the the early church "fathers" (the more i hear that term i less i like it) allegorized everything as they were convinced that every passage of scripture spoke DIRECTLY about christ and so the passages had to be twisted to make it so.
I dislike typology strongly, and will only accept as valid types those things which the bible explicitly says are types. That is to say if someone says that something is a type of something else but canot support it with biblical statment, i will reject it outright
And yes, i remember the saying that was in my head when i wrote my first post here and tried to allude to it:
If plain sense makes common sernse
SEEK NO OTHER SENSE
(of course this has to be held with careful qualification, and with a sober awareness that common sense is in fact a mixed bag. After all TANSTAAFL - there aint no such thiong as a free lunch - is a dictum of common sense which the gospel of grace flatly refutes
sheep, your research is commendable. You have far more patience than I do.
As for the stuff you presented, it seems to me that they failed to see what was written in plain text, and this is the sin of unbelief. They sought to dig deeper into the word. This might be commendable thing if they did it properly but to me the rational nature of what they came up with shows it was not done properly. Indeed, doing it as sinners they were doing it carnally, and if they soldiered on they could only ever have twisted the text. The Pharises did the same thing. This is not to deny study or thinking on the scripture, but it is to be done under the personal tutelage of the Holy Spirit
To me the Rabbinical thought is a clasic example of that kind of extreme myopia that I have been prey to, whereby they gaze so intently at the text that it wil distort under their own eyes.
They clearly idolize words when they spin them out into these 4 absurd realms wihch absolutely stink of gnoticism.
And one of the clearest indicators that they would not read the scripture plainly is what they did with the Song of Songs.
I now take it as plain text and reject all the metaphorical claims that it is about christ and his love for his church.
So what is it for? It is a celebration of erotic love between man and woman. And what is it doing in scripture? It is to show that God is the author of sex, and that the sin does not lie in sex itself but in the abuse of it. Therefore romantic love is a gift of god to be righteously enjoyed, only, of course in the context of lawful marriage. In fact the only way to really enjoy the gifts of god is righteously, for the greed that motivates unrighteous enjoyment of things is never satisfied and thus always unfillfulled, so is trying for the bigger high next time. But if this is true then God did indeed give us richly all things to enjoy and puritanism is the sin of ingratitude. Not only that but abundant life becomes something to do with real life in the creation rather than, for us, a protestant form of monasticism. And pie in the sky thinking is sin. It is a great pity that the propserity teachers, in their proper rejection of pie in the sky, got it grossly wrong in what they would replace it with
I submit that the rabbis and we christians all too often read that book with an unclean mind. WE cannot take what we read in plain text. The so called Church Fathers did just this wirth just this passage. And when we see their misogyny (Jerome, or Tertullian) we see their fruit as being ;inked to their carnal mindedness, as I now hold they are directly linked
So, confronted with the plain text of the Song of Songs we try to escape our embarrassment by insisting that the text meant something else other than plain meaning; and that this is done when we try to bludgeon our way through our unbelief rather than simply admitting it
Gnosticism the carrot, you correctly say. But gnosticism is full of those white words i talk about. Words that are just buzz words, empty symbols and archetypes. It seems i can smell them a mile off and that every time they appear some balderdash doctrine is attached.
There's nothing down to earth and feet on the ground about these people. And agin i think it is dissatisfaction with life. they seek the grass which is greener over the other side of the fence of reason (in the wilds where the mad things grow). they seek something wierd and wonderful and far far away because they cannot bring themselves to acknowledge their here and now guilt, sin and boredom, or the here and now mercy of the Creator. For ultimately gnostics of all sorts (and i mean the attidude not just the fully formed doctrine) deny or ignore the implications of the fact of God the CREATOR.
One of my aphorisms is that idolators die of boredom.
I really do think that I have seen the psychology behond the nature of gnosticism.
To me righteousness is not supernatural or "spiritual realm" it is about walkijng with the creator in the creation. . . . .
comments?
(01-17-2009 01:27 PM)sheep wrecked Wrote: [ -> ]Very well put. I see it as groping in the light filled fog of ethereal relativity trying to find the mystery of life in an illusion that does not exist :cloud9:
Quote:To me righteousness is not supernatural or "spiritual realm" it is about walking with the creator in the creation. . . . .
comments?
Wouldn't that be spiritual? Isn't righteousness how one's mind and heart are changed to be like Christ? Isn't walking with God allegorical of relationship - which is spiritual? 
I might distinguish between spiritual and "spiritual realm". I was trying to make a point about the charismatic abuse of chasing supernaturals all the time.
To me this contempt for the creation and their lust for the thaumaturgics, histrionics and cheap dramatics which are the essence of their hermeneutic is gnostic attitude par excellence
It is about emphasis, a spiritual walk here in creation rather than their psychotic withdrawl (which afflicted me severely) into a fantasy nightmare land - well it wasnt dreamland - of demons, curses, annointings, of all manner of irrational reifications which they do because they are superstitious and naive rigid literalists whose over tight gaze at the scripture comes up with similar nonsense to the Kabbalists you mentioned earlier.
To me a classic example of out of context rigid literalism coupled with and producing superstition is Derek Prince
