Is the Cosmos an allegory for what happens in the Bible?

     The short answer is most definitely not, though in this blog, I can most definitely allegorize the images that JWST takes of the larger universe in order to emphasize important points within the Bible itself.

    The Book of Judges on the other hand seems to be an intentional allegory in the Bible. This book of the Bible seems to be just story after story about the wickedness of Israel resulting in its difficulties with God's grace granting Israel a much-needed savior in their hour of need. Particularly, the Book of Judges seems to chastise the Israelites for seeking guidance and leadership in individuals and entities other than God Himself.  For instance, time after time, the Israelites get themselves into trouble by adopting deities and worshipping idols other than God, in the process forsaking God's grace. The Israelites then, almost immediately, become subjugated by the king of a different people, and after many years of oppression, beg God to help them in their time of need. While hard on them, God eventually does grant Israel a saving grace in the form of a hero who is able to save them from their oppression who proceeds to judge Israel as a sort of ruler for a long time, bringing about peace as a result. However, once said hero dies, the Israelites turn back to their false gods or even sometimes unworthy kings who begin the cycle of corruption all over again. 

    The cyclical nature of these stories invokes a sense of intentional repetition which I believe highlights mankind's faults, even within God's chosen people of Israel. On that note, one thing I find incredibly interesting about this Book is that the judges themselves are often imperfect as well. For example, Samson is a hotheaded and impulsive man imbued with ungodly amounts of strength which he uses to set fields of crops on fire with foxes when his father-in-law gives away his wife to another man. In the process, he angers the Philistines and gets his father-in-law and ex-wife killed, and when the men of Judah attempt to bring him to justice by delivering Samson bounded to the Philistines, he casually kills 1000 men "with the jawbone of an ass" (Judges 15:16). It is also unclear if he is even aware of the true source of his strength when he misinforms Delilah, multiple times, on the source of his strength, and even after she is shown to be plotting with the Philistines to get him captured on several occasions, he still eventually tells her the true source of his strength (Judges 16:17). Why would Samson lie to Delilah multiple times and only trust her with the truth when she has been proven to be untrustworthy? He has got to be either really backwards thinking or just ignorant of the true source of his strength and naive enough to stay with Delilah despite her unfaithfulness. Quite possibly the most disturbing, however, is how the book seems to almost glorify his death and massacre of 3000 lords of Philistine with the line, "so the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life" (Judges 16:30). This line seems neither overly celebratory nor overly sad, but rather, seems to immortalize the slaughter of the Philistines as his greatest achievement while still depicting it in a somber tone.

    Overall, that seems to be the tone of the Book of Judges. There are heroic characters in the judges and accomplishments done by the Israelites that individually are impressive, though not necessarily admirable, but in their larger context are overshadowed by the Israelites' inability to worship God and stick together as one people under God. Perhaps the worst case of this phenomenon is how the other eleven tribes of Israel ban together to kill all but 600 men of the Benjaminites after they refuse to give up the "men of Belial" responsible for the rape and possibly the murder of a Levite's concubine. In the most united action by the tribes of Israel since they escaped Egypt, Israel tears itself apart, and to rub salt in the wound, they can only ensure the continuation of the line of Benjamin by stealing women from other tribes to give to those Benjaminites. The whole situation is just downright terrible, and yet, these are supposed to be God's people.

    As I began this post, the Book of Judges is most definitely an allegory for how human sin corrupts God's promise to Israel, keeping the nation from reaching its full glory, and I believe the above image by JWST can be allegorized to a similar end. In that image, four galaxies gravitationally interact, and in the process, tear each other apart. While the galaxies are not dense enough for significant problems to occur on the stellar level, each galaxy's structure is fundamentally altered and pretty much lost in the gravitational dance. Instead of the beautiful spiral galaxies they all started out as, they will morph into one, rather boring elliptical galaxy pretty much uniform throughout with no defining or intriguing features. In much the same way, Israel appears to be tearing itself apart in the Book of Judges while just begging, literally and figuratively, for someone to lead them away from their corrupt ways without taking on that responsibility for themselves. It is honestly just kind of sad and disheartening to watch it happen knowing that all such problems could be avoided if the "children of Israel did" not " evil in the sight of the Lord" and instead just remained faithful as one unified people under their obviously powerful and mostly benevolent God (Judges 2:11).