Commenting on the common LDS readings of Ezek 37 and Isa 29, Protestant Jeffrey S. Krohn wrote that they represent “allegorizations” but
They are not legitimate biblical
allegories, like the parables of Jesus, which reference ancient historical
referents. These passages are quoted to emphasize modern historical referents,
such as the joining together of the BoM with the Bible, the BoM speaking out of
the ground, or Smith being unlearned. (Jeffrey S. Krohn, Mormon
Hermeneutics: Five Approaches to the Bible by the LDS Church [Eugene,
Oreg.: Pickwick Publications, 2022], 93)
Elsewhere, addressing the appeal to sensus plenior (which
we find in the New Testament [e.g., Matt 2:15//Hos 11:1]), Krohn noted that:
Those that advocate a sensus
plenior approach focus on the contemporary significance of biblical
passages. This is similar to our subject under consideration—LDS
allegorizations as a self-identification with the biblical narrative. The
“literal” or “plain” meaning of the text recedes into the background in favor
of what the event means today. Therefore, a version of sensus plenior might
be an appropriate way to label LDS methodological activity here. However, the
hermeneutical legitimacy of sensus plenior is a matter of debate (In
fact, “one of the most heated debates in hermeneutics has been the issue of
whether Scripture has a fuller sense than that intended by the human author”
[Muthengi, “Critical Analysis,” 63-64). Simply put, “problematic for the sensus
plenior view as applied to contemporary ‘fuller meaning’ is the lack of any
adequate controls for what might be part of this new, fuller sense” (Brown, Scripture
as Communication, 115). It is difficult to tell the difference between sensus
plenior and “the projection on to the text of a theological idea or belief
acquired by some other means” (Wright, People of God, 58-59). Since the
“meaning is not contained in the text itself,” it may be more appropriate to
“speak of a fuller understanding on the part of the exegete rather than of a
fuller sense of the text” (Muthengi, “Critical Analysis,” 69). Any random
interpretation, LDS or otherwise, could be claimed as the “fuller
understanding” of the interpreter. (Ibid. 99-100)
