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Developing a Sense of the Poetic
By Doug Talley

Medieval Christian scholars exercised a rule of interpretation that looked for fourfold meaning in Scripture — literal, allegorical, moral and anagogical. Dante essentially distilled the categories down to two — the literal and the allegorical, the allegorical being anything beyond the literal.

Scotus went so far as to say that every scripture was subject to an infinite number of meanings, like the iridescence of peacock feathers. This may be extreme and lead to the excess of “looking beyond the mark” and “wresting scriptures” to our destruction. We see things that were never intended. Sometimes a parable is meant to be literal; at other times it is more. Sometimes a rose is just a rose. Yet there is something that persists in the human heart, which in the right context, insists on envisioning the rose as a woman. This is one of the effects of poetry — the invitation to perceive beyond the literal. But it begs an important question: when is it safe to look for a double meaning in a literary passage or a verse of scripture? How is one to read?

In his work, Reflections on the Psalms, the modern Christian apologist, C.S. Lewis has already addressed these questions to some extent, quite admirably. He notes in his introduction that it would be wise to allow for the poetic in Scripture. “It seems to me appropriate, almost inevitable,” he writes, “that when that great Imagination which in the beginning, for Its own delight and for the delight of men and angels ... had invented and formed the whole world of Nature, submitted to express Itself in human speech, that speech should sometimes be poetry. For poetry too is a little incarnation, giving body to what had been before invisible and inaudible.” (Lyle W. Dorsett, ed., The Essential C. S. Lewis, New York, New York: Touchstone Books, 1996, p. 395). In looking for poetry in Scripture, and in developing a sense of the poetic, a reader may become more skilled in accurately identifying additional meaning in Scripture, the figurative or allegorical as well as the literal.

The Inherent Difficulty of Scripture

C.S. Lewis readily acknowledges the difficulty that reading the Scriptures poses:

We may observe that the teaching of Our Lord Himself, in which there is no imperfection, is not given us in that cut-and-dried, fool-proof, systematic fashion we might have expected or desired. He wrote no book. We have only reported sayings, most of them uttered in answer to questions, shaped in some degree by their context. And when we have collected them all we cannot reduce them to a system. He preaches but He does not lecture. He uses paradox, proverb, exaggeration, parable, irony; even (I mean no irreverence) the “wisecrack.” He utters maxims, which, like popular proverbs, if rigorously taken, may seem to contradict one another. His teaching therefore cannot be grasped by the intellect alone, cannot be “got up” as if it were a “subject.” If we try to do that with it, we shall find Him the most elusive of teachers. He hardly ever gave a straight answer to a straight question. He will not be, in the way we want, “pinned down.” The attempt is (again, I mean no irreverence) like trying to bottle a sunbeam. (Id., pp. 403-404).

In his examination of the Psalms, Lewis explains why it is we should accept the presence of second meanings in Scripture. He writes:

We are committed to it in principle by Our Lord Himself. On that famous journey to Emmaus He found fault with the two disciples for not believing what the prophets had said. They ought to have known from their Bibles that the Anointed One, when He came, would enter into His glory through suffering. He then explained, from “Moses” (i.e., the Pentateuch) down, all the places in the Old Testament “concerning Himself” (Luke 24: 25-27). He clearly identified Himself with a figure often mentioned in the Scriptures; appropriated to Himself many passages where a modern scholar might see no such reference. In the predictions of His Own Passion which He had previously made to the disciples, He was obviously doing the same thing. He accepted — indeed He claimed to be — the second meaning of Scripture. (Id., pp. 405-406).

Help from Modern Revelation

This view is consistent with what modern revelation teaches. If, as Alma testifies in the Book of Mormon, “all things denote there is a God,” we might expect to see and understand this “second meaning” — the hand of Christ — in virtually any creation, not just in Scripture. Again, however, there is a danger in reading beyond the mark. The Prophet Joseph Smith laid down a general principle for reading the parables of Jesus that is instructive:

In reference to the prodigal son, I said it was a subject I had never dwelt upon; that it was understood by many to be one of the intricate subjects of the scriptures: and even the Elders of this Church have preached largely upon it, without having any rule of interpretation at all. What is the rule of interpretation? Just no interpretation at all. Understand it precisely as it reads (i.e., read it only literally). I have a key by which I understand the scriptures. I enquire, what was the question which drew out the answer, or caused Jesus to utter the parable? It is not national: it does not refer to Abraham, Israel or the Gentiles, in a national capacity as some suppose. To ascertain its meaning, we must dig up the root and ascertain what it was that drew the saying out of Jesus … Jesus was not put to it so, but He could have found something to illustrate His subject, if He had designed it for a nation or for nations: but He did not. It was for men in an individual capacity; and all straining on this point is a bubble. (Joseph Fielding Smith, Compiler, The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1976, pp. 276-277).

On the other hand, Joseph Smith was not a mere literalist, and understood there were parables uttered, which were not meant to be read in literal fashion only, but had allegorical meaning as well. Perhaps the most stunning example of his ability to read beyond the literal is found in his exegesis of the parables found in Matthew 13. (Id., pp. 94-102). He referred to these parables, of which there are seven, as “beautiful sayings” and it is true that these seven little stories, or prose poems, are strung one to another like a necklace of lovely pearls. These, in order, are the parables:

1.       The parable of the sower and the seed

2.       The parable of the wheat and the tares

3.       The parable of the mustard seed

4.       The parable of the leaven

5.       The parable of hidden treasure

6.       The parable of the merchant and the pearl

7.       The parable of the fish and the net

Of these seven, Jesus offered interpretation privately to his disciples of two — the parable of the sower and the seed and the parable of the wheat and the tares — and taught them how to see and understand beyond the literal. As if to finish the instruction, Joseph Smith offered allegorical interpretations of the other five. His interpretations of these five do, in fact, validate the Medieval method of exegesis in searching for multiple meanings in scripture. The only caution, Joseph would seem to add, is that the rule not be applied universally to every passage of scripture, but only where it applies without contortion.

Joseph read into the seven parables a prophetic allegory of the history of the Church. The first parable had reference to the gospel then being taught and the Church to be formed by Christ. The second parable had reference to the apostasy — that at the very moment the early church was being established by Christ, Satan would sow tares of dissension and false doctrine and thereby ruin the planting Christ had made. Christ himself gave this interpretation of the parables as they pertained to the Church of that era.

Seeing Beyond the Literal

It was left to Joseph Smith to interpret the remaining parables, which he saw as all referring to the Church in the last days, the Church of the current era, beginning with the parable of the mustard seed. He wrote:

And again, another parable put He forth unto them, having an allusion to the Kingdom, that should be set up, just previous to or at the time of the harvest, which reads as follows — “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field: which indeed is the least of all seeds: but, when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.” Now we can discover plainly that this figure is given to represent the Church as it shall come forth in the last days. Behold, the Kingdom of Heaven is likened unto it. Now, what is like unto it?

Let us take the Book of Mormon, which a man took and hid in his field, securing it by his faith, to spring up in the last days, or in due time; let us behold it coming forth out of the ground, which is indeed accounted the least of all seeds, but behold it branching forth, yea, even towering, with lofty branches, and God-like majesty, until it, like the mustard seed, becomes the greatest of all herbs. And it is truth, and it has sprouted and come forth out of the earth, and righteousness begins to look down from heaven, and God is sending down his powers, gifts and angels, to lodge in the branches thereof. (Id., p. 98).

This seems a marvelously inspired interpretation and confirms that what is granted by the Holy Spirit is often deeply poetic. A Medieval theologian might have been able to find a fourfold interpretation in the passage, including perhaps an allegorical meaning, but only Joseph could offer an expansive allegorical interpretation capturing all its nuances, that the tiny grain of mustard seed is like the Book of Mormon, a compilation of gold plates which an ancient prophet buried in the ground, later to sprout up by translation through the power of God, and then to spread forth into the entire world, attended by signs of testimony — visions and tongues and angelic visitations — that would lodge like birds in its branches.

Somewhere I once read a tidy, little aphorism that it takes a great poet to read a great poet. I do not believe that Joseph ever made any pretensions of becoming a great poet, but he clearly had developed a great poetic sensibility and was a wonderfully creative reader of metaphor. He certainly had his models, found in the Book of Mormon itself, such as in the ancient prophet Alma.

Alma was himself a creative reader, able to extract multiple meaning from scriptural passages with as much skill as any Medieval theologian, as evident from his interpretation of the story of Nephi and the Liahona found in Alma 37:38-47. Clearly Alma was not reading only as a literalist. He intuited in the purely historical account of the Liahona a deeper allegorical meaning, a “type” or “shadow” in his terminology, and provided an interpretation that just as the Liahona, like a compass, led his fathers to the promised land, so the word of Christ would lead disciples to the promised land of heaven. Alma found both a literal meaning and an allegorical meaning in the account of the Liahona.

The Value of a Metaphor

If any confirmation were needed that Scripture is susceptible to multiple meanings, Alma and Joseph Smith and C. S. Lewis have provided it. But the principle is self-evident. The Creator of this world intended that His children develop a poetic sensibility and see all things fashioned by Him as a metaphor of His power and love. It is seen in the figures of Christ as the “Lamb” or the “Bread of Life.” In developing a sense of the poetic, we learn to appreciate the value of a metaphor and its ability to provide multi-layered meaning, richness and complexity to our faith.

While it is true that we are to read and understand Scripture by the power of the Spirit, if we take this to mean that we must merely read and “feel,” then the injunction is entirely too easy and simplistic. We have the further injunction that we “must study it out in [our] mind,” which, in our approach to Scripture, suggests real work. It is our province and privilege when reading to look for multiple meanings where they are to be found. We have permission, and the obligation, like any scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven, to be as the householder who brings out of his treasure things new, as well as old. If we have no other reason for pursuing poetry, this reason alone would suffice: reading fine poetry helps develop our skills of interpretation, aids in our understanding of Scripture, and therefore, can bring us more intimately into relationship with Christ, the Master Poet.