BibleProject - Metaphor E1: Metaphor & Our Imagination

Episode Date: June 13, 2018

This is our first episode in our three-part series on the use of metaphor in the Bible! In part one, the guys discuss the metaphors used in Psalm 46. 1 God is our refuge and protection, found to be a great help in times of distress 2 Therefore we won’t be afraid when the land shifts when the mountains totter into the heart of the seas; its waters roar, they churn, mountains quake at its swelling. Selah. 4 A river whose streams make glad the city of God, The holy dwelling places of the Most High God 5 God is in its midst, it will not totter; God will help it when morning dawns. 6 The nations roar, the kingdoms totter; He raised His voice, the land melted. 7 The Lord of hosts is with us; The God of Jacob is our tall fortress. Selah. 8 Come, behold the works of the Lord, Who has wrought desolations in the land. 9 He makes wars to cease to the end of the land; He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two; He burns the chariots with fire. 10 “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the land.” 11 The Lord of hosts is with us; The God of Jacob is our tall fortress. Selah. ————————————- In this Psalm, there are some obvious metaphors used. Specifically, God // protective refuge (v.1) // tall fortress (v.7)
 God // Jerusalem temple // river Chaotic, pounding ocean waves // nations at war
 God melting earth // God breaking nations // God’s exaltation.
 These are vivid images, but what is going on here? Every culture has its own way of developing metaphors and imagery unique to their history and experience. Biblical poetry is drawing on a core “encyclopedia of production,” from which the poets draw to develop images and metaphors. In part two, the guys go over the core images that are presented above. Why would a poet use these image pairings and combine them in this specific way? Jon comments on how metaphors change over time and within each culture. For example, when the steam engine was popular and represented a huge change in society, people would say things like, "he’s hot-headed” or “my gears are turning.” Then once computers came along, our cultural metaphors shift to sayings like, “let me process that.” In part three, Tim and Jon discuss the differences between these figures of speech: Metaphor: Describing one thing as if it were another. Example: "She is a ball of fire." Simile: Explicit comparison between two things. Example: "She is like a ball of fire." Metonymy: Referring to something by naming what it’s associated with. Example: "The pen is mightier than the sword." "Hollywood produces so many films." Synecdoche: Naming a whole thing to refer to part of it, or naming part of a thing to refer to the whole of it. Example: "The U.S. won a gold medal today!" "Portland is a quirky town." " My hands were tied in this situation." "Let’s do a head-count." Thank you to all our supporters! You can find our more about The Bible Project and get free resources at www.thebibleproject.com Show produced by: Dan Gummel, Jon Collins Show Music: Defender, Instrumental Magnificent Defeat, Josh White Show Resources: Umberto Eco, The Name of a Rose Books by George Lakoff and Mark Turner: More Than Cool Reason: A Field Guide to Poetic Metaphor Metaphors We Live By

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

You don't have to read much biblical poetry until you find yourself surrounded by metaphors. The Lord is my shepherd, I am the clay god is the potter, Jesus is the bread of life, the Lord is my rock. Metaphors can be a way, an author or poet, craft a unique way of talking about something. A metaphor is taking one idea. Usually it's something very tangible, something easy to understand, and mapping that idea onto a more abstract experience. So I know what a rock is like, it's sturdy. I've held a rock in my hand.

I've had the experience of trying to move a large rock across the field. I've stood on a tall pillar and felt its strength blow me. Now I have this other experience that's a lot more abstract. And my abstract experience is feeling that God is ultimately dependable. Map these two experiences onto each other.

And you get the metaphor, God is my rock. And while most biblical metaphors are easy enough to understand like that one, we have to remember that every culture develops its own various types of metaphors that will seem strange to another culture. And this is true for those who wrote the Bible. A great example of this is how Biblical authors constantly use the image of tumultuous waters to describe any experience of danger, whether it be the unknown, dangerous people, dangerous situations, and even enemy nations, why is somebody thinking like this?

What did it take to produce a poetic imagination that thinks in terms of these images instead of some other hedges? This episode is part one of a three-part conversations on biblical metaphors that we should be familiar with. But first, we need to have a conversation, simply about what metaphors are, how they work, and how you are more saturated with metaphors than you ever imagined. Even how... Our very understanding of reality is itself metaphors.

This is the Bible Project Podcast. Here we go. So we have a series of videos on how to read the Bible. Yes. We had one whole conversation about the art of biblical poetry, the unique styles, techniques, conventions of ancient Hebrew poetry. And we saved for its own topic just because it's so fascinating and rich. And to me, eye opening, which is how imagery and metaphor works in biblical poetry, which is similar

to most poetry is image-driven language, but at least as we'll see the biblical imagination, pun intended of the imagination. How's that a pun? Well, sorry, it's a nerd pun. We're talking about imagery. There's biblical imagination. Image imagination. To be able to image things for.

Yeah, yeah. Biblical imagery, the biblical imagination, has its own like encyclopedia that you need to learn how to fill and then draw upon as you're reading. That's interesting. I have found over the years of teaching that teaching people what the meaning of these basic images are in the Bible, because they're not images that are common to modern readers.

I almost feel like when you stop at this point and just talk about what does that mean for metaphors to be basic to our understanding? Yes. Oh yeah, we will. We will talk about that. Totally. Yeah. Yeah, I think the conversation, yeah, should first go to what are metaphors and how do they

work and then getting into the uniquely biblical. Because when you say that, the biblical portfolio of metaphors is not something that we can become aware of, but are not aware of necessarily. But in everyday life, we do have our own handbag of metaphors that we're very aware of, and we're not even aware that are our metaphors. That's right, yeah. We're born into a metaphorical imagination that we aren't even aware of for the most part until someone draws attention to it.

Yeah, I'm excited about this video and this conversation. I thought however, as we've been doing, with these conversations is beginning with a reading of a biblical poem. Cool. That I think will be a perfect segue. Give us all the raw materials to work with. Sweet a reading. Great. Yeah. Psalm 46. God is our refuge and protection, found to be a great help in times of distress. Therefore, we won't be afraid when the land shifts, when the mountains tauter into the heart of the seas, its waters roar, the churn, mountains quake at its swelling. Céla. Which means nobody knows what it means. Céla. Céla. Céla. Céhébrew word.

Spelled English letters. It usually indicates some kind of pause. In this case, there are three se la's that break the poem into three stanzas. Okay, that's just the first one. Stanzah 2. A river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy dwelling places of the most high God. God is in its midst, it will not tutter. God will help it when the morning dawns. The nation's roar, the kingdom's tutter, he raised his voice, the land melted. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our tall fortress. Seala. It's not a call and response thing. This is right.

Okay. Final stands it. Come behold the works of the Lord who has wrought desolations in the land. He makes wars to cease to the end of the land. He breaks the bow. He cuts the spear into, he burns the chariot with fire. Be still and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the land. The Lord of Hostes with us, the God of Jacob is our tall fortress, Zedla. Psalm 46. Psalm 46. So, let's just be coming out this conversation cold. So, I've been thinking about Psalm 46 for a long time and then prepping for this conversation,

so I have a bunch of stuff on my mind. But I'm curious, when someone comes at Psalm 46 fresh. I have this Experience when I read most Psalms, which is this would be a really thrilling poem if I lived in a time where this kind of stuff mattered to me You know like like what? I don't know actually. Maybe I'm just not using my imagination like more battles Well, yeah Like what? I don't know, actually maybe I'm just not using my imagination. Like more? Battles? What do you mean? Well, yeah. Yeah, I mean, well, there's earthquakes. I guess there's still that stuff.

All right, earthquake. There's still nations who are roaring. Yeah. Yeah, so interesting. I'm going to take that back. I just am not thinking, I'm not using enough contextualization in my own mind. Sure. Yeah, there's a lot of very violent images. I'm not using enough contextualization in my own mind. Sure.

Yeah, there's a lot of very violent images. Feels very catastrophic. Tote? Yes. Nations on the brink of melting down, tottering, as it says. Yeah, Nations roaring, land shifting, mountains quaking, violent imagery. Yeah, totally. I mean, that is in each of the three stanzas,

there's a core action taking place of quaking, earthquake-ing, whether it's in the first stanzit, it's mountains crumbling into the sea while the pounding surf, roaring in churns and eats away. It's of like a stormy surf pounding on the rocks and eroding a hillside. Right. It's pretty, it's pretty powerful. Yes.

Yeah. Okay. So is that the second stanza? It's not the water's roaring. Any saying you won't be afraid when there's that kind of crazy. Yes, that's right. When the water's pounding at the rock, we're not afraid because who is our refuge and protection got it.

For the whole first stanza is of the poet depicting standing on a big piece of rock surrounded by... Just a churning ocean. ...churning waters that are eroding and crumbling it to pieces. And he's not freaking out. The poet's not afraid. Yeah. Why is that? Well, let's consider more. In the second stanza, instead of waters pounding and roaring and causing erosion, it's the nations roaring.

But the nations that are roaring like the ocean waters are themselves the thing that are tottering. Not the place. Not land anymore. And what is the sturdy thing in the second stanza? It's not just a rock now, it's the temple. The holy dwelling places of God most high, it's where God is, right? God is in its midst.

And notice what is coming out. Why is it plural dwelling places? Yeah, I know. Yeah, it's called the city of God, the dwelling places, and then God is in its midst, the city that has the dwelling places of God. Isn't there one dwelling place? Well, there's one building at the central building, but then there's the courts and then all those rooms around it, the large court areas, the precincts. Is this one of those plural like heavens? Oh yeah,

plurals of complexity. Yeah. Yeah. One thing that has all kinds of different components to it. I could be what's going on here. I didn't look up that detail. And notice how the two stand is actually overlap with each other. The first one is the poet standing on a rock that is God. While the pounding surf erodes wrong. Now you realize this overlapped with that is the image of the nations pounding against the land Jerusalem where the temple is, but instead of the rock crumbling, it's the kingdoms crumbling when God raises his voice in the land of melts. And then there's a refrain midway through the poem here. The Lord of Hostes with us, the God of Jacob is our fortress. What do you mean a refrain? Oh, because it's said twice. Yep. Yeah. Verse seven, the Lord of Hostes with us, the God of Jacob is our fortress,

is the middle line and the final line at the poem. The third stanza leaves the water and rock imagery, and it's behold, the works of the Lord, who brings an end to all wars by breaking the bow, cutting the spear, overcoming the chariots. What does the word rot mean? He rot. I know.

Yeah, it's literally word do or make. But in English, I just liked it. I think it's the King James. It's very part of the King James. It does sound poetic. Yeah. The idea is the Lord is a warrior who brings the end to all wars. So he overcomes the threat of the pounding waters

and the nations. And he doesn't end to all of their implements of war, and then God speaks in the culmination of the poem, be still and know that I'm God. I will be exalted among the nations, exalted in the land, and then the refrain again. The Lord is with us. The God of Jacob is our fortress. When you first read the Burning the Chariots and breaking the Bette Boas and cutting spheres into. Yeah.

I didn't read that in context of ending war. I kind of just saw it. I just was like, yeah, he's going to fight back or he's fighting. Fancy, yeah. But it's like for the purpose of ending the chaos, making, and then be still, and you can imagine like the stillness of the water after that. Yes. Well, exactly of the water or of a battlefield. Right. Because the stillness comes after he makes war's cease throughout the land. But in the developing imagery of the poem, the nations are the land. But in the developing imagery of the poem,

the nations are the waters. Right. Yeah, the care waters is the battlefield. Yeah, so notice you have three stanzas and think of each of them as a little transparent piece of plastic. Yeah, things like our Disney used to animate. Yeah, totally, yeah.

And each, so on the first piece of transparency is the like a small little island rock getting pounded by the surface. Yeah, it was the poet standing up there and God's his fortress, but he's freaking out. He's trying not to be afraid because of the pounding waves eroding the rock. And then lay on top of that a picture of Jerusalem where the nations are attacking Jerusalem, but the temple is there. And God is in the midst of his temple. And the nations attack but then melt and totter, like the waves recede after attacking. And then on top of that is an image of God is the one who brings about the tottering of the violent nations so that the calming of the storm,

like the calm after a storm on the beach and the still battlefield after the victory has been won, is the image of God victorious over human violence and over creations' violence and then the 1,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5, in this poem, God is a rock. Yeah, I'm familiar with that one. Yeah, it's a pretty standard one. Yeah. Red, the songs. If you've read any or sung any hymns and church.

God is a rock. On Christ the solid rock I stand. And that's pretty, yeah, intuitive universal. Rocks are strong. Yeah, they've been around a lot. Build the house on a rock. All that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah, they're sturdy. Sturdy. Stable. So that's a pretty intuitive image. Yeah. To make sense of, but all this stuff about... That one's in my handbag of metaphors. Yeah, you've got that one already.

But what about the rock being assaulted by the waters? That's kind of... Yeah, well, you know, that's interesting, because what I have picked up throughout the years of reading the Bible is understanding how important the waters were as a metaphor, which it took a long time to begin to see that. And actually the first time it was brought up to me was I was really tripping out about, why isn't there gonna be any sea in heaven?

Yes, that little line in the book of Revelation. Yeah, and there's no more sea. There's no more sea. And I remember I have much friends your surfers Mm-hmm. They're like really no C in heaven come on And then someone brought up like we'll look the the C Represents chaos. Yeah, that's the first time I ever heard that and then you start reading through the Bible and seeing that Yeah, that's one of those metaphors that's right that we just don't have in our

Mm-hmm in our metaphor briefcase. Correct. You know, so keep changing the metaphor for the briefcase. You're handbagged. For the handbag briefcase. Well, it depends on what job you want to do that. Right. Or a satchel, my metaphor is that.

See, yeah, you got rock, you got waters, you have some holy dwelling place on a mountain with a stream running out of it. In the center of this pond. Yeah. That's a metaphor, is that just? Oh, that's a good point, but it. In the center of this pond. That's a metaphor, is that just... Oh, that's a good point. But it's, sorry, it's an image.

It's an image. It's an image here. We're gonna need to figure out what to call this video. Is it just metaphor or is it imagery in biblical poetry? Or is it imagery in metaphor? In biblical poetry. Because they're a bit different. But they kind of illuminate each other. We'll go into that.

Then the last thing is this image of the battle, the still battlefield, where God's victorious over the nations, and then God as a fortress. So there's all these overlapping images. Some of them sound biblish, God is a rock. There's a temple involved, you know. But this whole thing of the water is assaulting the rock. And the rock is connected to the temple. And there's a battle on the nation. And then the waters represent the nations.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that would be, you got to read through the poem a couple of times to realize the pounding surf is equivalent to the pounding nations, the roaring surf. That would have been a typical kind of metaphor to have used back then, but the nations were like chaotic waters. Yeah, correct. I think we're going to see that's a really core biblical image.

Yeah. A seriously thing, anybody could read this poem in any translation and be like, oh, the world's crazy, chaotic waters, nations, gods and control, he's gonna bring peace. Yeah. Be still and know that I'm God. I'm thinking, I'll write a song about that. And I think you can get it. Yeah, it's a powerful one.

Yeah, you get it. You know, you can get it. So the question is not about the basic first reading. The question is about, why did this poet bring together these images in this way? And what significance is there? This connection of the rock and the waves and the temple and the nations. Why is somebody thinking like this? What did it take to produce a poetic imagination that thinks in terms of these images instead of some other images? Yeah. Like if you were to write a poem right now about how you find refuge in God in midst

of chaos. Sure. What images would you use? That's a great question. And it probably wouldn't, I mean, maybe it would be a stormy coast. Yeah. Yeah, if we lived on that Oregon coast. I lived on that Oregon coast.

Yeah. To be honest, living, having grown up, up you know right in the heart of Portland and I remember the years that I lived in Madison, Wisconsin Going to graduate school. It was a much smaller town and it was quiet. Mm-hmm. It was just quiet. Madison is? Mm-hmm. Oh, I didn't Imagine that it's a college town. It's a college town. I mean, if you go right to the yeah, hard to downtown But it's not a huge city. I just remember it's just quiet and When I moved back to Portland the contrast was stark to me So it's hearing sirens you're hearing the trains down in the industrial district The airport so you know all the planes of our landing in Portland are flying. Right over you.

Over East Portland, dude. And traffic and it's just, so. The background noise. I'm just saying, in my formative imagination, silence, one of the main things where my mind goes when I think of stillness and peace isn't about earthquakes and rocks and waves. It's about noise, silence, and solitude.

And I think that's just because there's a little kid growing up here. There was a constant city background of noise that I wasn't even aware of until I moved away in my 20s. So that's a good, that's an example. Your formative imagery for conceiving of the universe. And how could it be otherwise? Right. Your brains, your minds are shaped by our environments,

and they give us the categories to think in. Yeah. The frame of reference. Yeah. So there was a literary, a professor of literary theory. I don't know if he's famous or not his name's in Berto echo That's a cool name. Is Italian. He wrote the name of the Rose, which is his most famous novel made into a movie anyway

Yeah, I profound and obscure and he developed this phrase though called that every Literature whether it's a poet or an author is Working out of what he called in an encyclopedia of production that every literature, whether it's a poet or an author, is working out of what he called an encyclopedia of production. That's the phrase, encyclopedia of production. Yeah. And actually every human, but particularly humans that are trying

to express themselves through words, are drawing upon what he called an encyclopedia of production. And I like encyclopedia, even though most of us don't even have them. Oh, Wikipedia. Yeah, we have the virtual encyclopedias. But the point is that it's this big, collected body of reference knowledge that you draw upon to make sense of your world. And our brains are constantly stocking, creating an encyclopedia.

And then his whole point was that humans do this individually. From the moment you are out of the womb, you're collecting sense data. And having multiple experiences about what's soft, what's hard. You're forming your encyclopedia. And the individual humans do this and then communities do this and then whole cultures do this. And so every culture when literature is created draws from its own unique encyclopedia of production. And he calls it encyclopedia production because it's the encyclopedia by which you produce ideas out of.

Correct. Yeah. Yep. That's right. Yeah. So anytime a work of communication is produced, it's... You're drawing from that encyclopedia. You're drawing from that encyclopedia.

It's cultural encyclopedia. I don't know why, like, it's a metaphor. Yeah. But I kind of like it. It's just helpful to think every culture has its own, and many cultures overlap certain entries in their encyclopedia, like sun and water, light and dark and life and death. But many encyclopedias are full of unique entries based on whether you live in the city or the country, whether you, that kind of thing.

So the question is, first of all, how does a culture and an individual's encyclopedia of imagery get stocked? How does that get stocked? And how does those images... Which is another great metaphor. Yeah, that's right. You just immediately made me think of

stocking trout in a lake. Yeah, totally. Yeah, how does it get filled? And how do our brains draw upon encyclopedias as we are making sense of the world? What role does imagery and metaphors serve in how we make sense of the world? Which is kind of the big question you were asking at first. Is it just a way we dress up and make our language sound pretty? Yeah, is it just something we use every once in a while to really drive home a point? Yeah, or is it something more deeply rooted in our psyche?

Yeah, that's right. So that's interesting topic to talk about. And I think, so let's talk about that. And then second, in light of that conversation, what is the uniquely Israelite Jewish biblical cultural encyclopedia that the biblical poets are constantly drawing upon and writing their poetry out of? Yeah, cool. I think a lot about consciousness in the mind and the one thing that becomes very

apparent is how our metaphor for how we even imagine our mind-working has changed over the years. Oh, man. Yes, I was thinking about this conversation. I thought about that too. Yeah, yeah, you go on but I know you know when steam became a new invention and was revolutionizing industry. It became a metaphor for how we started thinking about things. Yes. Pressure and valves and all these things. And gears are turning. The gears.

My gears. Yeah, and so we started thinking, we started thinking in a metaphor of steam and gears as to how our psyche works. So yeah, you just used a phrase, like my gears are churning, or yeah. Let me churn on that, or let me, yeah. Yeah. Or hot headed, maybe even comes to that,

I don't even know. Probably not, that might be something else. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. But then when computers came out, it became a new metaphor. And we started thinking about computation and our brain's work in terms of processing.

Let me process that. And so the way we think about even our own rationality is changed over the years based off of technology. That's right. Conceptions of the universe and how it works, you know, in terms of the universe as a machine right, operating with gears by laws. And again, I'm not a science nerd, but I know enough to know that once quantum physics got involved, like straightforward gear model of the universe, just the closer you look, the more it started falling apart. Yeah, it was just you need a different, a totally different

way of explaining it. It's way more organic and whatever quantum physics is. So it's mathematical, but it's not gears. It doesn't work like gears. So yeah, those are good examples. The steam, the steam engine machine, brain versus the computer brain. Those come from two different, even from the same culture, just at two different time periods. Yeah, century later. But they're different, that creates a different encyclopedia of production. And so, when somebody writes a poem about how their mind works, Yeah, they're drawing from that.

They're gonna draw from two different types of encyclopedias. Yeah. Two different times of the volume. Those aren't the only two. I'm just kind of spacing as to what they would have been otherwise. Yeah, yeah. is to what they would have been otherwise. Yeah, yeah. So that's totally true. And so I mean this would be a time to bring up Lake off.

Yes, that's right. Yeah. So first just this is interesting, word metaphor, Greek word spelled with English letters. Oh, is it? Metaphora so meta is yeah beyond with or became me and across or across Mm-hmm in some some senses okay? Meaning on the context and then for a is from a Greek word verb Pharaoh to carry Hmm so lead to transfer. Oh cool. Of course. It's carry across to carry. So we'll need to transfer. Oh, of course, it's carry across. To carry across the associations of one thing and carry them to another, to another thing.

Yeah. So that's the basic idea. You're talking about one thing as if it's another thing. Yeah. To carry the associations, the ideas usually connected with machines and you're applying them to the brain. Yeah. So that's it. You're talking about one thing in terms of another thing. Just so just actually so we can have clarity

in our conversation. Yeah. This is in the notes here. Metaphor is actually just one kind of a larger category. You could call them figures of speech. Oh, right. Or non-literal language, though the meaning of literal language is debated. It starts like quantum mechanics, you start looking close enough.

Yeah, it's not all a false apart. Yeah, that's right. So metaphor is talking about one thing as if it were another. My wife's a ball of fire, whereas the moment I explicitly draw attention to the comparison, my wife is like a ball of fire. Then that's called in literary terms a simile. Yeah, that's always seemed kind of a weird distinction. Like what's so important of throwing in the word like? Well, it's as if when you in a simile my wife is like a ball fire. It's kind of like I'm backing away. Yeah, you're hedging a little bit more. Yeah. So what a metaphor really embraces it.

Metaphor. That's right. Yeah. It's almost like you're committing to the image more. It's like it tells you to suspend your reality. We're going in. Yeah. That's right. Similes kind of like. Yeah. We're going in, but don't worry. Yes. Yeah, when I say my wife's like a ball of fire I'm saying there are some Things that my wife and fire heaven common. Yeah, not everything. Yeah, but some things when I say my wife is a ball of fire Yeah, I'm forcing you To go through like the thought process of being like well, you can't actually. So, but there are some really important ways that his wife is like fire. Yeah.

What are they? What could they be? Yeah. But you, it's like you're pitching the ball into the listener's court. Yeah. So, other types of speech that are kind of like this is, we've talked about these before metanomy. Yeah.

We have, um, and senectady. It's senectike. And sinectady. It's sinectaky. Sinectaky. We have a whole podcast episode where I mispronounce the genre and over and over. I forgot about that. Yeah. Yeah, so metanami is you refer to something not by it, but by something it's associated with. So Hollywood produces lots of great films. So Hollywood's a place. Or associated with. Can I use your wheels?

Or no, is that the other one? Oh, yeah, wheels is Sinecticky. You're using part of a thing. A part of a thing. To refer to the whole thing. But also in Sinecticky, you can use the whole thing to refer to part of it. So you would say like the US won a gold medal in the Olympics.

Oh, okay. Something like that. So what you mean is by the whole of US is one particular US is then. Right. Yeah. So part for whole whole whole part. That's anectarchy. Metanomy is association. Ah, got it. The pen is mightier than the sword. Yes. So you're not talking about pen and swords you're talking about war and communication. Yeah. War versus, yeah. Yeah, communication. Yeah, cool. So these are all types of figures of speech. And in all of them, usually you're drawing upon images.

Yeah. Verbal pictures, which is why a more basic way to talk about what I really want this video to be about is actually imagery in biblical poetry. And metaphor is one particular, it's one way to use images, but it's not the only way. Well that solves that then. You said earlier you weren't sure. But metaphor is also a common enough word that it just sounds, I don't know, which sounds more interesting, which would be a video you'd be more interested in. Immigri in biblical poetry or Metaphor?

I would probably click on Metaphor first, but if I clicked on Metaphor and then it was, Metaphor was just part of it and it was really about imagery, I'm like a confused. Well, that's what I wonder, like, in our cult, I think in our culture, metaphor has come to have a broader meaning, to just mean using images and word pictures and figures of speech, metaphorically. Interesting. Non-literal speech is metaphorical speech,

meaning, ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Using images instead of, well, that's fascinating. So I've certainly come across that, in terms of classroom and... using images instead of, well that's fascinating. I've certainly come across that in terms of classroom. That's how people tend to mean it. Yeah, yeah. It's metaphorical. Is that literal or metaphorical?

Ah, yeah. And they don't say literal or symbolic, they say. Ah, yes, symbolic might be used sometimes. So just keep that on the brain as we're talking in terms of what will be inappropriate title. Literally, keep it on my brain. Ha ha ha. Ha ha.

Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha.

Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. Ha ha. Okay, so you and I both are interested in the ways that brain science interacts with literature studies here and the way poetry and metaphor isn't just... It's doing something to your brain. Correct. Or it's expressing something that our brains are already doing.

Oh, okay. Well, yeah, in other words, metaphors can be a way that an author or poet crafts a unique way of talking about something. So like, instead of saying, I'm having a hard day and I don't understand what's going on in the politics of our age, I write a poem about standing on a rocky island that's being pounded by chaotic surf. Something like that. So that's creating a metaphor.

But the question is that poem was created by a human, in this case a human who we believe was inspired by the spirit of God. It's right, this poem. And what does that tell us about how that poet sees and makes sense of his world? Right. Not just how he wants to talk pretty about it, but how does that poet make sense of his world and that our very understanding of reality is itself metaphor. That's the basic idea here. The landing of reality is itself metaphor. That's the basic idea here. So yeah, you've read the most accessible

and popular authors on this. How the brain makes sense of reality is through metaphor. There's a couple guys, George, Lackoff, and Mark Turner. So when did you come across their work? Is it Turner? The book I've read is Metaphors We Live By. It's Lackoff and Johnson.

Oh, and Johnson. Okay, got it. Then there are other ones, which is a little more academic, is more than cool reason, a field guide to poetic metaphor that's George Lakeoff and Mark Turner. Yeah. So George Lakeoff. Yeah. It's a literary guy.

Literary, cognitive theorist. Yeah. I's a literary. Literary guy. Literary cognitive theorist. Yeah. I don't know. How did I turn into it? I don't know. I think I just saw it on a shelf. And I was like, that's a cool title.

Yeah. Metaphores we live by. Metaphores we live by. Yeah. Yeah. And then I read it and I was blown away. Me too. Blown away.

Yeah, me too. It's like having somebody point out to you that you're wearing glasses. For the first time. For the first time. And you're like, I know what? You had no idea you were ever wearing glasses. For the first time. For the first time. And you had no idea you were ever wearing glasses. That's what it was like for me. Yeah. Oh man, yeah.

I highly recommend reading that. Oh, totally, really. Their basic point is a poet can talk about one thing in terms of another, and we call it metaphor. Yeah. My wife's a fireball. But what their whole case cases is that our brains are making sense of complex unfamiliar experience data constantly. And what they're doing is using pre-existing

categories from past experience that are usually more concrete they're usually more concrete and familiar and then with as if we project Our experience of the past on to this present unfamiliar thing and we can make sense and I think everyone would say yeah Okay, I of course I do that, but then they start showing yeah how embedded it is Inception of everything. Yeah, that's right. They start unpacking it and realize like holy cow I didn't realize realize all the metaphors I was using to explain things. So they have a, it's a pretty simple, it's kind of like a way to break down what our brains are doing.

They talk about two categories of how we process metaphors and think in metaphors. They use the word source domain and a target domain. Yeah, this is geeky. It's so funny like yeah, I would never explain it this way. You wouldn't this is the nerdy way to explain it. Maybe. Oh, interesting. Oh, okay. Got it. Well, this is probably the best way to explain it. Oh, this is trying to break down. This is none of us are aware that this is happening. Yeah, you have to really. Yeah, but they're trying to recreate what our brains are doing. Yeah, love it.

It's really fascinating. Your source domain and your target domain. Source domain and target domain. So this is a quote from more than a cool reason. We use a metaphor to map certain aspects of a source domain onto a target domain, producing a new understanding of that target domain. This is where, for me, the word map as a verb, entered my cultural, my encyclopedia. I was really good.

Yeah, I was through their work and it's very helpful. Yeah. To think in terms of, like, on our smartphones, we can do this and just be like, yeah, you can either turn off certain features of your map, or turn them on. Mm-hmm. And so if you turn on a certain feature, it's like a layer laying on top of your map that all of a sudden you can show like a grid of Portland, but then you can turn on the layer

that turns on the satellite images. Yeah, like the satellite images. Or bakeries nearby. Yeah, or in Google Earth, you know, you can turn on street names or you turn them off. Oh, okay. So you use mapping. It's like our brains have already mapped previous experiences and then we take that map and lay it on to a new experience.

So they use this metaphor of time as a thief. In the metaphor, time is a thief. Part of the mapping is super imposing. Our idea of what a thief is. Yeah, actually a metaphorical understanding of time as a possession. All right, that would be more basic. Yes.

Time is something you can own. Yeah, time is a possession. And then what we do is carry all of the feelings that we have about our possessions. Yeah, they can be stolen. And we map them on to our experience of time. Yeah. So when I say the word time is a thief, what their point is, there's actually a

deeper conceptual metaphor underneath. It's a metaphor. What? Okay. When I use the phrase time is a thief. Yes. Which one's a more basic? Time is a possession is the most basic. Correct. Okay. Underneath saying time is a thief, which is an interesting figure of speech. Right. Underneath that is a conceptual metaphor that time is a thing you can possess.

And we carry all of our emotions and feelings about our personal possessions. Yeah. And we map those onto our experience of time. And just think of all these phrases, I lost time yesterday. I gained some time by getting to work early. Man, he took up so much of my time yesterday. Yeah, that experience still years for me. Yeah, totally.

I've got time to spare today. I got some spare time. I got some spare time. I got some spare time. Just like I have spare chain. Or spare cash. Yeah. So, that's like- So the source domain is possessions.

Yeah, my stuff. And the target domain is my experience of time. Yeah. And time is such an abstract thing. Yeah. How do we talk about it? Well, let's talk about like a possession. Yes. Even though if you really start to think about it, you don't own time.

It's not your possession. Although you do, I mean. But in a way you have certain degrees of control. You have an allotment of it. Yeah. Okay. And that's, and so when it's gone, it's gone. So what's the closest thing to that? Well, I have an allotment of cash or a lot of things. And when it's gone, it's gone. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, the difference is that there are some possessions that if you choose to, you don't have to give them away. Whereas time, you always have to lose it or give it or spend it.

Time has to be spent. Time has to be spent. Yeah. Time is money. Yeah, you could write a poem about that. It's a very interesting insight. You have to spend your time. You can't save time.

Like you save money. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So here's an interesting question. Is this economic, money possession metaphorical conception of time? Is this universal to the human experience? Mm. Right.

Did ancient Israelites talk this way? Right. What turns out, they didn't. Like you won't find these types. Interesting. Ways of talking about time in the Bible. You won't find them in all kinds of cultures around the world. But you find them in our culture at least.

So I'm not an expert on this metaphor, but it's very interesting. So that's a good example. How would the Bible talk about time? Oh, just differently. Gosh, that's a whole like theme video. Yeah, seriously. Bible conception of time.

Pretty simple to grasp. You take your experience and all of the feelings associated with one core thing and you map them on to some other experience. Yeah, yeah, okay, I found this thing. There's five metaphors I was thinking should be reimagined. Oh, yeah, good. One is love is, I called it love as a trap. It's probably a better way to think of it. But people talk about falling in love and it's something that happened to you. Happens to you and you be at. It's very passive. You become captivated with someone. Yeah. Captivated with someone. You're like you're a captive. Yes. Well I saw a dark side of this and it made me think like,

oh this, this needs to be rematched. We just talked about time as a possession, time as currency, I'm wasting time. My mind as a computer, I think that needs to be reprocessed. Emotions as a disease, my emotions flared up. Or my, you know. or am I? You know? Oh. And then my body has a battery. I need to recharge. You know what? Maybe that's a good one.

I don't know. Because we are very. Okay, so here's the interesting. It's, you can do these like little mental detective stories then, where, so those are little phrases, metaphorical phrases, but to apply Lake Off and Turner's. It has to really.

Yeah, is there actually some deeper core metaphor that that phrase is just one expression of? Like time as my possession can manifest itself in all of these different ways. I lost time, I gained time, he took my time, I spend time. Those are all ways of talking about one core space in my brain time as a possession.

So the question is, is when I use any given figure speech, is there actually a deeper conceptual set of glasses I'm wearing that I'm not even wearing up? Does it weave together to create this tapestry which is your underlying metaphor? Yeah, that's right. He brings up some really classic ones like time. Yeah. And then you have one down here. Life is a journey. That's a good one. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that's the first point is that how our brains work is mapping from one set of experiences onto another experience. Okay.

Second is they want to make the distinction between these, they call it basic conceptual metaphors. These like deep underlying metaphors that we're not even aware of. Yeah. They want to distinguish those from poetic metaphors. Got it. Because those are the ones that are generating the poetic metaphors. Got it. Because those are the ones that are generating the poetic metaphor. Correct.

Yeah. The basic idea is, think of it like using a metaphor or image. Think of it like a well that's connected to a deep, whatever. Underground spring. Underground spring. Someone can draw a bucket down, the crack or the well, and then bring it up, and then do something with that water. And the water comes from the underground spring,

but they're different. Yeah, then they can make some gatorade with it. But then you make gatorade with it, you know, or something nobody ever thought of. That's the basic idea. There are basic, deep metaphors that we're not aware of. Yeah, the basic ingredient. And what we come across in poetry are like surface manifestations of deeper underlying

metaphors. Right. So, yeah, so they talk about basic conceptual metaphor. Life is a journey. Think about how many unique poetic expressions you can come up with and that riff off of that core idea. You can talk about people being lost. Yeah. You can literally be lost. Or you can speak about being lost as in terms of not knowing

your vocational direction. How to make the next decision. How to make the next decision. When you talk about figuring out the right decision to make, we talk about finding my way. Jesus and wisdom literature in the Bible uses these two paths, there are two roads, images all the time, of the right path and the wrong path. Narrow is the gate, broad is the road, type of thing. The famous Robert Frost, poem, two two rods diverged in a wood.

Wait, he isn't talking about hiking. So yeah, all these biblical proverbs, the heart of a man plants his way, but the Lord establishes his steps. So life is a journey. So the deep underlying metaphor that our brains are constantly drawing upon to make sense of day-to-day experience that gives meaning to our choices. We talk about fork in the road, moment, a metaphor in the road. That's a good example. So like, it brings forth as a journey is the basic one and it manifests in all these different ways turns of phrases poetic Expressions. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they talk about other ones of people are plants people as plants

I've never heard this one all right of humans the way we talk about each other is so much with plant language Okay So we have we talk about kids sprouting or actually a more common one is like she went to college Man, she blossomed. She is blossomed. We off-spring Or in the Bible the Hebrew word for children is seed Human children. Yeah, that's the same as the name of a Plants graph. Correct. Yeah seed. Yeah, you look upon your seed, meaning you look upon your children. Yeah, that's always a weird one

when you read it in the Bible. Your seed, you just don't use that. That's right, unless you grew up on a farm. You call kid seed in farmland? Hmm, well, that's a good point. So people are plants. Some of them have to do with our just experience in the human body.

So up is good and down is bad. Yeah. I mean, this is just everything. Yeah. Whatever. I'm feeling down. I'm flying high. Yeah.

We use spatial figures of speech constantly. I'm talking about good versus bad. Yeah. Even the word depressed. Depressed? Yeah. The best down. Yeah.

On the top of the world. Top of the world. Yeah, I've got to leg up on this situation. A leg up. That must come from something else. What is that government? A leg up. I got a leg up.

Like a rock climbing metaphor? I don't know. Good question. So, I think one really interesting one is argument as war. Did you read that one in leg offs? That was in metaphors we lived in. Okay, that's in metaphors we lived in. So your claims are indefensible, or he attacked your weak points,

or his criticism is right on target, the malish argument, won the argument, so you're talking in all these war metaphors. Okay, that's a good example. Also, it's a good example of what, does it mean to reimagine? Yes, and so I've thought about this. That metaphor is, yeah, and I've thought,

what can you reimagine it to? And the one I came up with is, argument as journey, to go to life as journey, make argument as journey. Yeah, so like, I don't know what the phrases would be, but like, let's, you know, together, we're walking forward side by side, we're clearing a path.

Yes. Like that's the metaphor. Yes. And if that's the metaphor, you're not finding each other, you're journeying together. Yeah. And I don't know if that'll work. Yeah. But, yeah, that's interesting. I think the main obstacle to your argument is this.

Right. So we might have to clear the path this way. If the logic of your argument works, then it brings you to this goal. Yeah. Where that argument is heading is a place I wouldn't want to go. Yeah, you took a turn right there in your logic. Yeah.

And I guess we do use that in fault. Yeah. We use it language. Yeah. But the point is, is that the moment you have on argument as war, instead of glasses, and you're not aware. You're trying to demolish and fight back. You're trying to hold your ground.

Correct. It predisposes you towards a more aggressive style of argumentation. That's a motivation. Fascinating things about metaphors we live by is not only are they the glasses we see the world through, but then they change the way we live in the world because we're looking at things in a certain way. Correct. Yeah, yeah, because we're looking at things in a certain way correct which then speaks to how powerful Re-match having a new poetic imagination

Hmm, you know, yeah gosh. I was thinking about this. I was in a conversation with somebody they were pointing out to me the way that digital Capitalism online commerce is reshaping the way that Generations growing up with eBay and Etsy reshapes how they view possessions. Oh, okay. You can get anything in your house in two days. You can get anything and anything in your room can be sold on Craigslist in a matter of

minutes. And so they're talking about how the Craigslist, whatever eBay is, I don't know, prominent eBay is anymore, but it's a mentality towards your things that's different. And then it begins to shape our language. It's a transient kind of mentality. Yeah, your possessions are more transient. And then it has the potential, I don't know how,

but it remains to be seen, how it will reshape our language about possessions. When you view them as they don't buy things releasing. Yeah, totally. Yeah, you purchase things to use them for a while until more to your advantage. That's an example of a set of metaphors towards our possessions. Well, that's waiting to be developed. Yeah, that happens where if culture changes enough, we start to live in a different reality in which we don't have a good way to talk about it

until we do. Oh, yes, okay. And then it'll materialize. So I have an example of this in the notes, but I'll just relate, because it was really interesting. This was about the development of the concept of force fields in modern science.

Oh, right, okay. So, and really it's the use of the word field. Okay, right. So, I think you mentioned this too. Yeah, it was a physicist, Faraday. Michael Faraday, Daniel Faraday, it's a really important physicist. I know the last name, Faraday. It says Michael Faraday, yeah, totally.

Michael Faraday, there's a whole institute, you know, physics dedicated to carrying on his legacy. So there's mid-1800s. He's like a pioneering physicist. So he developed the concept of the magnetic field. Okay. So what we're talking about is when a magnet, the effect that a magnet has. Totally, yeah, we throw him like a, you know,

the classic thing, if you throw a magnet on a table with little pieces of iron around it Yeah, it exerts a force. Yeah, or a force or an attraction Yeah brings certain of those little pieces of iron. There's a stick to it and there's a real estate around it in which it works Correct. There is a space around it. Yeah, where the attraction is strong enough to actually move it Yeah, so the whole point was about what do we whole point was about, what do we call that? Yeah, what do we call that space?

So he developed the metaphor of field, which was used, according to Oxford English Dictionary at the time, to use an actual... Plot of land. Plot of land, where everything in it is the same thing. It's a corn field, it's a wheat field. So it's a field dedicated to a certain thing and everything in it's the same. And then you can have field as a metaphor of study,

so a field of research, field of whatever, quantum mechanics. Yeah, so it wasn't that that was always a metaphor. At some point, Faraday was like, man, there's something we need to talk about. We don't have a language for it yet. Correct. So he adapted the English word field. And it actually changed its meaning because of magnetic field is not like a wheat field. Because a wheat field doesn't have more wheat in the middle.

Yeah. And less wheat on the outer rings. What I love is that almost all languages in that way. Correct. That's right. And that's what I'm always fascinated by. Yeah. Atomology is because if you look into it, you'll usually find the basic metaphor behind the word you're using.

Correct. And we could play a little game right now. We could just find metaphors to cool words. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, totally. You can do this all day. That's why reading Lake Off and Turner.

But for some reason, I liked this one, where it was like he introduced. Yeah, that's a great one. The word field and the word actually underwent transformation. And now we use the word force field, where a magnetic field, as if it is a thing. And the whole point in this book that I was reading about metaphor was it's not a thing.

It's just there's a space around magnets. It's the effect that you can describe mathematically why there's this attraction between those and not the other piece of the iron far. So it is a thing. Ah, what we're using, we're using the metaphor field to describe a phenomenon. A phenomenon. Yeah. That happens within a certain degree of space and we use a metaphor field to talk about

that space. Cool. And it reforms the meaning of the word. I think of myself as an explainer as you term I like to use. Yeah. What am I? What do I do with my life? I like to explain things. I as an explainer as you turn my like to use. Yeah. What am I? What do I do with my life? I like to explain things.

I'm an explainer. And so though, but the word explain has a cool metaphor behind it. Oh, I don't know what it is. X out, plenare is Latin, X plenare. Oh, yeah. And plenare is plain. It actually, before it came to mean to explain something the way we think of it, it meant to basically just like iron out or smooth out like fabric or anything else, like explorate, like,

explain our, or it was also used to explain the blossoming of a flower. So, you have all these planes that unfold, fold out. So, it's an unfolding. It really means unfold. I remember being in at Monoma, where we both went to school, and there was this brand new metaphor everyone was using, where they would say in class, well let's unpack that. It's the first time I've ever heard that. Oh really? It's unpacked that idea.

Yeah, and everyone. Piece of baggage. Yeah, like we had this box in front of us. Yeah. And we now got to open it up and pull things out. Yes. And I'd never heard that before, but I noticed all the smart people used it. So this is an important metaphor. Yeah, totally.

And I think that's the idea of explaining, is you're unpacking, you're unfolding things, seeing how it all works. Because we do have ideas, little packages of ideas that I'll give to you. Every one of our videos, it's like a package of an idea. Yeah, that can be unpacked further.

Yeah, but then you can unpack it more, and that's the role of an explainer. Yeah. Unpacking it in such a way that you go, oh, that's everything in there cool. It's pack it back up, and now I have that thing. Yeah, yeah, that's good in there, cool. It's pack it back up. And now I have that thing. Yep, yeah, yeah, that's good. And what are we referring to? We're referring to an idea.

We're referring to abstract ideas. Concepts in our brains. Right. But that we both agree exist in the world and can be unpacked in these ways. I had to realize we thought of one in a meeting this morning, broadcast. Oh, right. Oh right.

Which I think in English originated for scattering seed, a farmer scattering seed. And then it got adapted as a metaphor for radio, TV, television, for broadcasting. And also in this morning we realized we're broadcasters. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's one way to describe the Bible project. We are a media broadcast. It makes us sound really important. Broadcast. Broadcasting. Not live. Okay, so this is all pretty intuitive, but it's so intuitive, we don't stop to think about it. Okay, so here is the next step. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bible Project podcast This episode was edited and produced by Dan Gummel. We are a crowd-funded non-profit

We make videos that you could find for free on our website thebibeproject.com and on our YouTube channel the YouTube.com Slash the Bible project. These podcast conversations are Tim and I getting prepared to write the scripts for the videos. In the next two episodes, we're going to look at two biblical metaphors that are woven through the entire biblical narrative, but are hard to see with our modern western eyes. Looking forward to those conversations. Thanks for being a part of this with us.