Allegory

Allegory as a literary and interpretive device appears in the Bible both as a compositional form and as an explicit method of reading existing texts. The word itself occurs in the New Testament only once — in Galatians 4:24, where Paul states that the account of Abraham's two sons (by Hagar and Sarah) is an allegory. He reads the historical narrative as representing two covenants: Hagar corresponding to Mount Sinai and bondage, and Sarah to the promise and freedom. This interpretive approach reflects a practice familiar in both Jewish and Hellenistic contexts.

In the Old Testament, allegory functions as a compositional device in Ezekiel's parables (the vine, the eagles, the harlot sisters), in wisdom literature (Ecclesiastes 12:2–6), and in Nathan's parable to David (2 Sam. 12:1). The term must be distinguished from typology: typology preserves the historical meaning of events while seeing them as prefiguring later realities; allegory in the strict sense replaces the literal meaning with a figurative one.