Rowan Williams reviews Jordan Peterson’s new book on the Torah.

My only quibble is his parenthetical, “not really what the text is about,” commenting on Peterson’s reading of Jonah as a parable that stands opposed to forms of environmentalism that prize “nature” over human well-being. I take the openness and flexibility of spiritual interpretation to mean that one can never declare, a priori, what a text is or is not about; what matters is the reading produced and the reasons offered on its behalf. If I recall correctly, Williams himself once gave a lecture about the ecological ethics of the tale of Noah’s ark. He wasn’t wrong to do so! These things are licit. Which doesn’t mean that every such reading is good; that none can be bad. Peterson’s might be. But not because he reads Jonah as “about something it’s not.” That’s what allegory is.