About the Book

James Rowe Adams

Introduction

Personal commitment to an organized religion in most of the industrialized western world has declined almost to the vanishing point. Church attendance in North America and Ireland appears to be the exception, but both countries show evidence of the general trend toward secularism. At the same time, however, interest in matters loosely labeled "spiritual" may be at an all time high. Fascination with the mysteries of life and death has drawn people to motion picture theaters to see fantasies such as Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings while preachers in mainline churches on a Sunday morning look out over rows of empty pews. Too many preachers have ignored the fact that if there is another reality beyond the one people can see, touch, and feel, that realm can be reached most effectively through fantasy, and fantasy's partners -- metaphors and extended metaphors such as art, poetry, drama, music, dance, and myth. Like knot holes in a fence around a construction site, metaphors allow the curious to peek into the realm of God.

Some people have problems with metaphors. The poet John Brehm had one of these metaphorically challenged people in a freshman class that was studying Matthew Arnold's classic nineteenth-century poem Dover Beach, which likens the decline of organized religion to the outgoing tide of the "Sea of Faith". To her complaint that the expression confused her, the teacher gently asked what confused her about it.

"I mean, is it a real sea?" she asked.
                       You mean, is it a real body of water
                        that you could point to on a map
                        or visit on vacation?
                        "Yes," she said. "Is it a real sea?"

Those lines of dialogue are now part of a poem Brehm wrote,^{^[1]} a poem that continues with the words he wanted to say, but did not.

It is a real sea. In fact it flows
                        right into the Sea of Ignorance,
                        IN WHICH YOU ARE DROWNING.
                        Let me throw you a Rope of Salvation
                        before the Sharks of Desire gobble you up.
                        Let me hoist you back up onto this Ship of Fools
                        so that we might continue our search
                        for the Fountain of Youth. Here take a drink
                        of this. It's fresh from the River of Forgetfulness."

The poet himself has been a freelance (and no, he doesn't carry a large spear) writer living in Brooklyn, New York.

             In my opinion, Christians who can't cope with metaphors have done their best, perhaps unintentionally, to spoil the faith for the rest of us. Part of progressive Christianity's task is to reclaim the classic metaphors for what they are: figures of speech that inspired beautiful narratives. To name a few --
            Son of God
            Resurrection of the Dead
            Body of Christ
            Kingdom of Heaven

Over the years, many people have abandoned Christianity because their teachers and preachers were metaphorically disabled. Once they discover that religious language is primarily figurative by nature, the experience of faith can open up for them. You can be a follower of Jesus without thinking that "heaven" is a place or that a "son" has to be a biological relative or that "dead" necessarily refers to the condition you're in when the undertaker comes for you.

Most terms used to express religious concepts began life as the names for concrete objects or observable actions. When sages and prophets needed to express abstract concepts, they seized upon familiar words that would give their followers a vivid picture of what they had in mind. For example, both Hebrew and Greek-speaking teachers used a familiar picture to identify self-destructive behavior. They used a word that meant "the hunter missed what he had aimed for". This metaphorical use of a verb related to hunting in English is translated as "sin".

Some will argue that by the time the many metaphors appeared in the writings that became the Bible, the words could have taken on new connotations. This is the same problem that J. R. R. Tolkien identified in connection with translating Anglo-Saxon poetry into modern English. In his prefatory remarks for an edition of Beowulf, he pointed out that the translator often cannot tell if or when a colorful description had become the accepted name for a thing. For example, at some point did "wall roots" become the common name for what we would call "foundations"? Looking back over the centuries in which the various parts of the Bible were written, we cannot tell when a transition from a metaphor to the name for a thing or for a kind of behavior might have taken place. This dictionary stresses the colorful metaphor at the possible expense of a biblical author or editor's intended meaning.

People frequently communicate with colorful language when meaning of the original metaphor has long been forgotten. Today, people speak of antagonists engaged in a vigorous argument as being at "loggerheads". Although the speaker and the listener may not have the faintest idea of what a loggerhead might be, they understand each other. People may enrich their communication, however, by becoming aware of the vivid pictures that gave rise to their figures of speech. The expression "at loggerheads" takes on new intensity when you realize that a loggerhead was a long pole with an iron ball on one end. Sailors in the nineteenth century heated the iron balls to melt tar, but sometimes they employed the tools to settle arguments. They swung them at each other's legs trying to inflict severe damage, if possible to break bones. Just as the picture of sailors literally at loggerheads can enrich the metaphor for people who come across it, the literal meaning of the original metaphors employed in the Christian tradition can stimulate the imaginations of today's readers. For a reader to get a glimpse of God's realm, it does not matter whether the biblical author or editor knew the origin of a particular metaphor being employed.

A few authors of documents that are regarded as holy scripture let their readers know that they were writing metaphorical language. The author of the Gospel according to John is one of them. Near the beginning of the book (chapter 3), the author tells a story about a leader of the Jews named Nicodemus who completely missed the point of what Jesus was saying by taking literally Jesus's words about being born anew: "How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother's womb and be born?" Then toward the end of the book (chapter 16), the author again reminds the reader about the nature of this kind of writing by attributing to Jesus the comment, "I have said these things to you in figures of speech."

St. Paul's letters show that he had little interest in taking the Hebrew Scriptures, his Bible, as being either historical or factual. Writing to the community in Corinth about the Exodus events, he said, "These things happened to them to serve as an example, and they were written down to instruct us." (I Corinthians 10:11) The Greek word Paul used for "warning" was typos, which originally meant a blow from a hammer and then a mark left by a blow, hence our word "type". In other words, Paul looked at the ancient stories as marks along the way, trail blazes, that offer guidance on life's journey. Paul revealed in a letter to the Jesus followers in Galatia how he found guidance in such stories. In reviewing the story of Abraham, Sarah, and Hagar, he wrote: "Now this is an allegory." (Galatians 4:24) Paul does not question the historical accuracy of the stories, but at no point does he suggest that anyone could find the meaning of the ancient texts by taking them literally. To be useful in drawing the reader into the realm where ultimate meaning may be glimpsed, scripture must be read as metaphor.

The beauty of returning to the original metaphorical language is that this approach opens up the wisdom of the ancients to twenty-first century readers who may not be of a theist or a supernaturalist persuasion. Thinking people who have been educated in the natural sciences can approach the Bible and Christian tradition without compromising their intellectual integrity. When biblical language is understood primarily as metaphor, the insights of the scriptures are revealed to the skeptic as well as the conventional Christian, to believer and doubter alike.

User Friendly

This book has avoided the use of abbreviations and scholarly notations that have made many resources for Bible study almost incomprehensible for the ordinary reader as well as for the biblically literate pastor. Another advantage is that all biblical citations are printed out so that the reader doesn't have to juggle From Literal to Literary and the Bible in order to follow the history of a metaphor. These citations are clearly marked as being from the Hebrew Scriptures or from the later Christian Scriptures, which were written in Greek.

The metaphors are arranged in alphabetical order by their English equivalents and are cross-referenced in two ways. First, in the alphabetical listings appear all words that are explored under different headings. Second, within each entry all words that have their own listings are marked with an asterisk (*).

The indexes should also be helpful to preachers preparing sermons as well as teachers preparing for Bible study. One lists all the Hebrew and Greek words mentioned in the text of the book and the pages on which they can be found. Another lists all of the passages of the Bible cited and the words in each verse that they illustrate.

Illustrations for the First Edition
by
Hannah Bonner

In addition to the illustrations for "sin" and "example", which appear above, Hannah Bonner produced a number of cartoons for the first edition that do not appear in the second. Click here to see the drawings that have been preserved for you edification and amusement.

1. The Best American Poetry 1999, edited by David Lehman and published by Scribner