The English language is full of great figures of speech and metaphorical language. Metaphors and similes are used to express concepts that might be too complex for the English language. In other words, a specific word may not exist to represent a feeling/emotion.

Describing ideas using similes and metaphors provides an opportunity to conjure a range of emotions when explaining a particular idea. People have a simile or metaphor for almost everything.  Colourful colloquial language is common in many parts of the UK. There are a few examples on my previous post …

https://rogerfarnworth.wordpress.com/2015/12/27/metaphor-symbol-and-simile/

Yet when we want to be more formal, we drop the similes and metaphors, we favour clear, propositional language over more colourful metaphorical language. The English legal system is dependent on the letter of the law, our legal documentation is very carefully worded to avoid as much ambiguity as possible.

So, when it comes to communicating the truth, Westerners prefer propositions rather than ‘fluffy words’.

“Because we are somewhat uncomfortable with the ambiguity of metaphors, we tend to distil propositions out of them. We want to know what they mean, in categorical terms. A philosophical description of God (“omni-present”) is better than an anthropomorphic one (“his eyes roam to and fro throughout the land”). Or so we think. This is why books on Jesus often talk more about the facts of his life than his parables. To us, things like metaphors and parables sometimes seem like unnecessarily frilly packages for a hard truth. We want to get past the packaging to the content; we want to know what it means.”[1]

This propensity to prefer propositional language over metaphors and similes leaves us at something of a loss when we read the Bible. Bible authors record important truths in similes, metaphors, parables and other, possibly ambiguous, language.

Different types of literature have different ‘rules’, so we expect different things when we read poetry rather than prose. Historical narrative is likely to use a different style to the telling of a parable or story. These distinctions are easiest to recognise in our own language. We can easily tell the difference between poetry and prose. It is a lot harder to make these distinctions when we are reading texts from another culture and from many centuries ago.

Some forms of literature are completely alien to us. Some books of the Bible are ‘apocalyptic’ in style, books such as Revelation and parts of Daniel. We have nothing in our own culture with which to compare these. “Such books reveal or unveil the mysteries of God about the future and make heavy use of symbolism, often involving numbers and animals. The present time is described as dire, and just when it appears things cannot get worse, God intervenes and rescues his people for a glorious future. While we may understand the big picture, the details are very confusing for those unfamiliar with this genre. We struggle to make sense of horsemen and bowls of wrath and strange hybrid animal creatures. Right in the middle of a natural disaster, a guy rides by on a horse. What’s up with that? This genre is foreign to us.”[2]

In this case, we know we don’t know, so we are prepared, or should be prepared to be careful in the way in which we approach the text. It is less easy to make these distinctions elsewhere in the Bible. The danger with making distinctions, is that we follow our instincts and relegate metaphorical language to a secondary place, we search out the more concrete statements and rely on them as primary. It makes the most sense to us to do so. Or we transpose metaphorical language into propositional language.

Biblical writers “often preferred to speak about spiritual things metaphorically. And this made earlier interpreters nervous because ancient readers of the Bible knew that there was a lot at stake in a metaphor. The original Hebrew text of Exodus 15:3 reads, “The Lord is a warrior.” The context is the Song of Moses. The Israelites have just filed through the Red Sea to safety and Pharaoh’s army has drowned in the tide. The Lord, Moses implies, is a more powerful soldier than all the battalions of Egypt. But the Greek translators of Exodus were uncomfortable with this image. So they did just what we tend to do: they translated the verse as a proposition. In the Septuagint, the verse reads, “The Lord . . . shatters wars” or “bring[s] wars to naught.’ Instead of portraying Yahweh as an armed and bloodied soldier, they highlighted a particular implication of his prowess. While they might be right—perhaps the best soldier is the one who brings war to an end—the Septuagint interpretation narrows the meaning of the text. Resolving the tension of the metaphor actually diminishes the breadth and application of the text. “[3]

Metaphors and other artistic expressions can also say more with less.  Just a couple of examples:

He had a broken heart.

She had cold feet.

When we hear these phrases we know not to take them literally and they carry with them a wealth of meaning, if we were try to be more ‘factual’ in our description of how these people are feeling we would either miss something of the breadth of meaning intended or focus down onto just part of what the metaphor invokes.

In addition, the use of metaphors often connects central truths in Scripture. Our parish in Ashton-under-Lyne is called the Parish of the Good Shepherd.

The concept of God as shepherd runs throughout the Bible. No one believes that God is actually a shepherd, we use the concept as a useful metaphor. For many of us it is a very significant one. We love Psalm 23. In Ezekiel 34, God describes himself as the Good Shepherd and the people’s leaders as bad shepherds. So, when Jesus claims, “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:14), what is he saying?

Perhaps first he is identifying other as ‘not good’! But the reference back to Ezekiel is unmistakeable. His audience realised this straightaway. Jesus uses the metaphor to identify himself with God and his listeners pick up rocks to stone him “for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God” (John 10:33).

In Scripture, these connections between metaphors are significant. “It was Abel, the shepherd, whose offering pleased God. Saul was a bad king—and called a bad shepherd—but King David was a good king who shepherded the people of Israel (1 Chronicles 11:2). If we simply distil the propositions out of each of these accounts (“The Lord provides everything I need”; “Jesus lays down his life for us”; “Saul was a bad king”; “David was a good king”), we miss the connection. The metaphor is not just a frilly package. In this case, the package is actually the bridge connecting all these ideas. Real misunderstanding is at stake.”[4]

Biblical scholars in the 19^th century argued that Jesus never made any claim to be divine. Their problem was that they ignored Jesus’ use of metaphorical language. “What went without being said in Jesus’ time is that metaphors bring with them the whole weight of the biblical witness—Torah, Wisdom and the Prophets.” [5] … Jesus’ listeners recognise immediately that he is drawing together a series of different strands of Scripture and they react accordingly.

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[1] E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O’Brien; “Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes”; IVP, Downers Grove, Illinois, 2012: p84. 

[2] Ibid: p85.

[3] Ibid: p86.

[4] Ibid: p87.

[5] Ibid: p88.

The realm of faith is a world of symbolism, metaphor and simile. It is almost impossible to speak of God without recourse to pictures and story. Our western world likes to be systematic and propositional  but when we try to speak of God in these terms we so often struggle.

In a future post I want to make use of ideas about metaphor, symbol and simile, so I thought it would be good to set out some ideas about what they are first ….

As Westerners one of our most used questions when we read the bible and particularly the stories and parables it contains is: “What does it mean?” We think parables are like fables: “there has to be a moral or a meaning that can be defined so that we all know what it is about.”

Other cultures can sit a little looser to meaning and read the text for what it is worth. This general difference between the Western cultures, to which we belong, and many other cultures in the world is important to grasp! Why? Because the text of scripture was written down in cultures that focussed more on story than on specific meaning. Perhaps this is why the Bible is a little resistant our attempts at Systematic Theology!

When Jesus tells us a parable he is not trying to convey a single meaning – if he were, why tell us a parable. What Jesus wants, I think, is that those listening to him hear the story and go away to ponder what it might mean. In their pondering the Holy Spirit is able to guide their thinking and develop a meaning for them. The story permits a range of applications or meanings and by doing so becomes the Word of God to each individual or group that listens to it.

This, very simplistically, is the theory behind Liberation Theology, which encourages groups of people, often the marginalised and the poor, to read the text of Scripture in their own context and expect it to speak directly into that context.

So, faith and religion cannot be distilled into a series of propositions which can be ‘proved’, they are about an alternate form of knowing. What is then really surprising is that, while we are often quite comfortable with the use of metaphors, similes and symbols in our daily lives, we can be uncomfortable with them in the context of faith.

We use metaphors in our speech without pause for thought: her home was like a prison; life is like a journey; the snow was a white blanket over everything; her voice was music to his ears; all the world is a stage;  the cast on his broken leg felt like a plaster shackle; her ambitions are as fragile as a house of cards; he is a night owl; the lake was like a mirror; he was like a pig at dinner-time; thank you, you are an angel; the clouds are balls of cotton …..

A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a term/phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable so as to suggest a resemblance, as in “A mighty fortress is our God.”  However, when we read metaphors in scripture we risk seeking to turn them into factual statements. Perhaps the most significant metaphor is that “God is our Father”. This is, of course, a metaphor. God is not human, God has no gender, God is not male, God is not physically a father; however the best attributes of fatherhood and the best of fathers help us to understand something of the relationship God has with us, and also God becomes an exemplar for fathers. Fathers who seek to love their families with the depth of love God shows to us are seeking to be the best of fathers. The metaphor is powerful, dynamic and effective in our language. So powerful, that we perceive it as fact.

Many parables function like metaphors, they provide a story which helps us to engage with deep realities. The story of ‘The Prodigal’ in Luke’s Gospel, perhaps better titled ‘The Loving Father’, or even ‘The Grumpy Brother’, is a metaphor for our relationship with God.

Symbols can  help us engage with deeper meanings as well. They can be as simple as pictures which represent things beyond themselves and which carry a weight of meaning that can be difficult to express in a few words.  So …  a set of scales is a symbol for justice, a dove and olive branch is a symbol of peace.  Other examples of effective and accepted symbols include the logos of particular organisations, coats of arms.

Every religion has symbols of some nature, in Christianity the cross or a crucifix carry significant meaning and point to the importance of Jesus death.

The bread and wine which Christians share are also symbols which carry significant meaning. In a way that we find difficult to articulate and with different shades of meaning for each Christian community, they feed our faith, emphasise our unity, and identify us with the death of Christ. Baptism expresses a connection with death and resurrection. Symbols can express the invisible or intangible in ways that words fail to do.

A simile is usually a figure of speech which pairs two things which are different to make a description more emphatic or vivid (e.g. as brave as a lion). Similes add depth to our language and are very similar to metaphors. Other examples include:  ‘cute as a kitten’, ‘as busy as a bee’, ‘snug as a bug in a rug’ ‘blind as a bat’. Similies are used to enrich the text of scripture as well, to help us imagine what is meant. Examples include:

Proverbs 25:11                  ‘A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver’;

Matthew 10:16                 ‘Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves’;

Matthew 13:44                 ‘The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field’;

Matthew 23:27                 ‘Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean’;

1 Thessalonians 5:2         ‘The day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night’.

By using simile, the bible authors add depth to their statements and anchor abstract ideas with comparisons that provide a reference point for our senses. Similes draw us into the text in a way that a bald statement would not.