In Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision in Ancient Alexandria (1992), Dawson showed that Postmodernism compels a reassessment of ancient allegory. There he argued that three Alexandrians, Philo, Valentinus, and Clement, practiced a valid form of biblical interpretation and used it to reinterpret their society and culture. One might have anticipated, then, that Dawson would move on to the greatest Alexandrian allegorist, Origen, who was demonstrably in-debted to all three. Now, ten years later, Dawson does so by putting Origen into dialogue with three modern thinkers who have used him as a foil to their own hermeneutics, Daniel Boyarin, Erich Auerbach, and Hans Frei. In the process, the author shows a deeper understanding of ancient allegory and makes a stronger case—although it could have been stronger still—for taking allegory seriously.