Plain vs allegorical exegesis

"In the ancient church two "paradigms" competed for predominance: the school of Alexandria, dominated by allegorical interpretation, and the Antiochene school, whose reading of the Bible was "plain."" - Niels Peter Lemche, The Old Testament between Theology and History, pg 36.

These claims never impress me, since they always appear capable of meaning less than I might assume, and because they never are backed up by sources. I don't distrust Lemche, but how do I know how well he has researched it?

My question then is: Any suggestions for where to look into claims such as this? ie The history of non-literal readings: who and when - and how we know it.

Might be worth having a look at The Literal Meaning of Genesis by Saint Augustine of Hippo, who lived in the 4th and 5th centuries CE. He argues against a literal interpretation of Genesis.

Also Bart Ehrman examines this idea in several (all?) of his books and Great Courses lectures.

>2 John5918: Thanks, I have been aware of that one for a while, though having read his "confessions", I suspect it will just conform to my accumulated understanding that "they always appear capable of meaning less than I might assume". He does after all appear to take it for granted that Genesis is meant literally. Maybe he changed his mind.

"An extraordinary wonder is the physical heaven, the solid firmament or barrier put between water and water on the second day after the creating of light, when you said 'Let it be made' and so it was made." - Confessions, pg 250

>3 librorumamans: Thanks, I have read two of Ehrman's books (Misquoting Jesus and Jesus, Interrupted) without noticing it, and I'm pretty sure it was late enough that I would have noted any treatment of the idea with interest.

I'll bear him in mind going forward, however.

I see that a few more primary sources are mentioned in the Selected Bibliography of Early Christian Readings of Genesis One, which might be a good secondary book on the subject.

However, the earliest writer of those primary sources, Theophilus of Antioch, is still as late as the second century, so we probably still cannot know what was happening in the first. And nothing in this thread so far says anything about Jewish attitudes to this issue. Maybe reading Philo of Alexandria would help there.

There are people who use both literal and allegorical interpretations, and then go on to moral and anagogical explanations. The four senses of scripture. See Henri de Lubac.

pre-nicean exegesis is by no means my forte, but have u considered looking at the polemics against gnostic and neo-platonic interpretations of genesis? they seem to take a v drastically diff interpretative strategy, perhaps subsuming both literal and allegorical.

also, considering how rhetorical devices r embedded in linguistic pragmatics, how much abt the literary expressions might have changed in the translations bw hebrew, aramaic, syriac, and greek? ik theres some heterodox claims abt the meaning of the aramaic and syriac new testament, e.g. from George Lamsa and Neil Douglas-Klotz

>8 sashame: perhaps subsuming both literal and allegorical

I think you're right that in earlier times there wasn't the stark (and arguably artificial) division between literal and allegorical that there is in the modern (post-Enlightenment) era. Both/and rather than either/or.