Figurative Allegorical Literalness

I like it.

I love anything that makes room for non-literal interpretations of anything in the church. I remember seeing some symbolism in the story of Lehi’s dream. I told my missionary companion at the time and he argued with me saying that because the symbolism I was seeing was not explicitly spelled out in the later interpretation of the dream that it wasn’t there. It boggled my mind that he couldn’t be open to the idea of items and figures from a prophetic dream to mean more than one thing. Like my companion of old there are many people who are locked into a literal mindset. (Ironically, Lehi’s dream is specifically non literal. However there is an official interpretation for it and my companion was not about to deviate one iota.) It is either literally true or historically accurate or it is meaningless. “Divine truth or damnable heresy”

The LDS church has not exactly helped us out on this front. We seem to claim a literal visitation of God and Jesus. We claim visits from literal angels restoring a literal priesthood power. We claim literal golden plates that were literally translated and contain the literal record of literal ancient inhabitants.

The problem as I see it is that there are some people that cannot see value in symbolism and allegory. The second problem is that when an individual starts to see some of these truth claims as figurative or visionary, they are then sometimes/often seen as and treated as less faithful in the church community. I believe that there is fear by many of the sandy and potentially shifting soil of symbolism. Better to stand firm on the bedrock of supposed facts. I believe that people of this mindset are attracted to, find likeminded individuals at, and generally thrive in churches like ours.

So you ask, what are the problems? One is that we have theologically staked a claim that Adam and Eve were real people and our first parents on this earth. The second is that Joseph taught that real defined places on earth were the same places where this Adam and Eve resided.

How do I make this work? Simple. I see the Garden and the Fall as both an allegorical story that refers to our premortal life and our fall from there. Yet I also hold that the first two of God’s spirit children placed into humanoid bodies were Adam and Eve, our literal first parents. In regards to the geographic locations, I am perfectly comfortable with God having shown Brother Joseph where these first parents lived and Joseph made a false assumption based on his literal view of the story that God was referring to Eden and just outside the garden when really God had only conveyed that this is where our first two parents resided.

If I read RSR correctly, it paints an amazing picture of JS. He had a divine talent for making the religion of the ancients new and applicable to modern people. God is speaking today and calling prophets. All the old covenants are being restored. The church members are the peculiar people, the kingdom of priests, the restoration of Israel that was foretold. JS brought forward new scripture from the mouths of ancient authors. He imagined the Garden of Eden in his immediate surroundings. He foretold the building of a new Jerusalem – a Zion – in MO where Jesus would return to rule the world for 1000 years. He was creating gathering places and promised lands in an age where that kinda stuff was no more. He started a tiny church that carried with it the culmination of all the divine promises/covenants of the ages.

I often wonder if God placed many of the stories in Scriptures that while taken literally by his children, actually take on a whole other level of intended meaning. What if the creation story with it’s Garden and Fall were God’s way of dumbing down an important story for his children?

I view JS as a sort of divine story teller. Dumbing down divine principles by imbedding them and packaging them into literal stories. What possibilities of meaning, vision, and personal revelation does that perspective open up? How many variations upon the core principle will allow us to see it from a different angle that we never considered before and to understand it just a little bit more? Perhaps Brother Joseph built upon the creation story by placing it in the American West and thereby quickened the spirits and ignited the imagination of his adherents. Are we really doing Brother Joseph a service – or are we really carrying on his legacy – by clutching so fiercely to his rendition that we close our eyes and our hearts to every other possibility?