back on another traditional way of reading and comprehending Scripture, namely as allegory. An allegory is “a literary or pictorial device in which characters stand for abstract ideas, principles, or forces, so that the literal sense has or suggests a deeper symbolic sense” (American Heritage Dictionary; italics mine). This way of reading is not intended to deny or to diminish the possibility of a literal reading, what Protestant reformers called “the plain meaning of Scripture.” But instead of immortalizing