BibleProject - Metaphor E2: The Mountain Garden & the Human Ideal

Episode Date: June 18, 2018

In the first part of the show, the guys quickly review some common metaphors used in our everyday language. “Time is money,” “life is a journey,” etc. Tim quotes again from George Lakoff saying that in every metaphor, there are elements contained within a metaphor. For example, in the “life is a journey” metaphor, there is embedded vocabulary like viewing people as “companions” and viewing obstacles as “bumps in the road.” Tim posits four main metaphors in the Bible: God is a dryland/mountain/rock. Waters are danger/evil/chaos. Humans are either at peace or at war with animals. The Garden of Eden river and the Tree of Life. In part two, the guys begin to break down the first metaphor listed above. Why is God thought of as “dryland?” To find out, Tim and Jon dive into Genesis 1 and 2, outlining creation. Tim says the imagery found later in the Old Testament is rooted in imagery in Genesis 1 and 2. For example, in Genesis 15, “you plant them in the mountain of your inheritance” shows that the Hebrews viewed their cosmic mountain Garden of Eden as paradise, and the Jewish temple is considered the symbol of paradise, which is man in communion with God. Jon makes a comment about a Fuller Projection map. This is an alternative geographic map of the world that lays out the continents in a different order. The guys discuss how different points of view lead to different thoughts and imagery used in a person’s worldview. In part three, Tim outlines the imagery in Joel 2 and Psalm 48. Here the writer(s) uses some of the imagery originally found in Genesis (holy hill, holy mountain, citadels, the city). Jon asks how critical the imagery of God as a rock/fortress/refuge is in the Bible. Tim points out that these images are fundamental to the Hebrew worldview. To prove his point, Tim does a quick word search and finds 78 hits of the words rock, fortress, and refuge in just the book of Psalms! Tim crystalizes the thought by saying the ideal state of humanity is in a relationship with God, working in a stable garden that acts as a fortress or mountain in which all of humanity can securely dwell. Produced by: Dan Gummel, Jon Collins Show Music: Defender Instrumental, Rosasharn Music Josh White, Pilgrim Instrumental E2 Resources: www.thebibleproject.com William Brown, Seeing the Psalms: A Theology of Metaphor Fuller Projection of Globe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map

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 in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

One of the main ways that we understand the world, if not the main way that we understand the world, is through metaphor by describing one thing as another thing. Mapping on the features and identity of something that we know to help us better understand something that we don't yet fully comprehend. standing web of associations and comparisons. Characteristic of metaphor is a fullness of significance that is not evident in other words, a surplus of meaning that extends beyond a word's dictionary definitions. Every culture has shared metaphors that become a common set of explanations

that we draw from again and again to make sense of the world and to produce new thoughts. In the last episode, we referred to this as the encyclopedia of production, like a database of images that we draw from to try and understand the world together. And every culture has this, but not every culture uses the same set of metaphors. In fact, the Bible has a few foundational metaphors that will seem strange to us. And so we've got to become familiar with them. But where do we start? Almost all of the poetry of the Bible is stopped with an image in psychopedia that was given to them by the Torah,

first five books of the Bible, specifically the Book of Genesis. Now, in this episode, you're gonna hear Tim say that he has four foundational metaphors that he wants us to walk through. In the end, we only get to talk through two of them. In this episode, we're gonna tackle the first one. A biblical metaphor to help us understand the human ideal. What does it look like to live in a state of peace? What does true freedom look like? What is the human ideal? Well, the Bible

gives us a metaphor. The ideal state of humanity is in covenant relationship with God, imaging God through creative work and it's a garden. And that is what is created on pages 1 to the Bible. And that gives the storehouse of imagery then for the biblical poet to talk about eternal life. This is the Bible Project podcast. I'm John Collins and today, the human ideal, cosmic mountains, fortresses, and temples. Here we go. entrances and temples, here we go.

Okay, so we're carrying on a conversation about how to read biblical poetry, specifically about symbols, symbols, imagery and metaphor in biblical poetry. And we spent a lot of time talking about how metaphor is very basic to the way we just understand the world. That's right. Yeah, it's not just a fancy way of talking. It's actually poetic figures of speech are our ways of giving expression to our metaphorical understanding of the world of time as a possession or life as a journey. People as plants up is good, down is bad.

That's a very basic one. Those are really basic. Yeah. Death as a departure, which is actually a way of thinking about life as a journey. Life as the journey's end of like sailing off into the sunset. Right.

Kind of thing. Yeah. Talked about an important part of this is how what we're doing, what our brains are doing or what a poet's doing is taking associations, feelings that we have with one domain, say like our money and our possessions, and then mapping it onto the target domain domain like my time in a given day. And so it's a basic conceptual metaphor to conceive of time as a possession. And these are so rooted in the way we think it's hard to sometimes remember that they actually are metaphors. That's right. Yeah. Like argument as war is a great one. You win an argument. You win or you lose.

As opposed to I had the more convincing or the more compelling it's I beat and defeated the other person, even though I'd hopefully never touch them. This is actually a quote about this idea from one of my favorite introductions to biblical metaphor by a named William Brown called Seeing the Psalms, a theology of metaphor. So good. It's really good. And basically he breaks the book down into all the basic concept metaphors that work in

the book of Psalms. And then he grouped some in different chapters really. So he creates encyclopedia. He creates, yeah, he's trying to recreate the visual encyclopedia of the Book of Psalms. It's such a good thing. Encyclopedia production? Yeah, encyclopedia.

So he says, metaphors create an expanding web of associations and comparisons. Characteristic of metaphor is a fullness of significance that is not evident in other words. A surplus of meaning that extends beyond a word's dictionary definitions. A metaphor, in essence, works by violating language. It's a transgressor that builds bridges across chasms of meaning that we have separated in our minds. He's talking very paradoxically here. That's weird.

Totally. Well, he's using a lot of in the images from the introduction to the book. But, yeah, when you're talking about God as a rock or God as a fortress, that would be an example. What does he mean though? It's a transgressor. In other words, if you look up the meaning of the word God in a dictionary, you won't find a entry under stone fortresses.

That's the idea. Is stone fortresses and transcendent eternal beings are different, totally different domains. But what the poet does is break the rules of language and say, God is our fortress. I get it now. What's the word for when you're kind of an instigator? You like to cause some sort of...

Provocator? Yeah, provocator. So you're more like that than transgressor or violator. It's kind of more like a... Let me mess with you. Yes, that's right. Yeah, sure I get it. Yeah, but I guess he's thinking more that if you think of how a dictionary defines What things mean? Yeah, the poet is wanting to he says create an expanding web of connections

Mm-hmm in comparisons between things. Yeah, that aren't connected in your dictionary. Yeah And so that's the encyclopedia. Yeah. And that's what metaphors are doing. So there you go. So the question is, every culture does this in its own way. Develops core basic metaphors that have lots of roles and slots that can spin out lots of different figures

of speech. And when we read a poem, like we read Psalm 46, at the beginning of the last conversation, you know, you might kind of get some of them on a universal level. There's a lot of images like that in the Bible, light, dark, water, sun, thirst, hunger, life as a journey.

But then there's going to be all kinds of imagery that has really specific connections and associations that if you didn't go up in that culture, you're just not, you're just not gonna get. So here's what I think this video can do is begin to provide or help people know how to begin to build their biblical and stich and psychopedia of imagery. And something that I have discovered over the last few years is that really what it takes is a lot of meditation on the first about 50 pages of the Bible.

And if you really have the first 50 pages, and by that I mean Genesis chapters 1 through 15. But if you get Genesis in your bones, the rest of the imagery of the Bible. Let the way that Genesis talks about things become a way that you start to think about. Correct. Yeah. Almost all of the poetry of the Bible is stopped with a image in psychopedia that was given to them by the Torah. There's five books of the Bible, specifically the Book of Genesis. And this has been such a helpful and productive principle for me, that it's the main way that I introduce students to biblical poetry and imagery now. Kind of like we did life as a journey. So life as a

journey and so you can use a figure of speech about hurdles and obstacles. Yeah. But that assumes the life as a journey that goes all the way back. Or you can talk about death as departure is the end of the journey. So it's a totally different figure of speech. Yeah. You know, I faced many hurdles last year versus my grandpa passed on. But those are both actually assuming the same underlying metaphor of life as journey. And the Bible works the same way. So all this stuff about water in the Bible, drowning in the waters, the waters overcoming you, waves overcoming you, The waters overcoming you, waves overcoming you, waters pounding the mountains, still waters, stormy waters. It all goes back to the last page one.

It all goes back to page one of the Bible and the way water works on page one. So it's very similar. So what I am hoping the video can do actually is just develop some core themes from page 1 and 2 of the Bible and then show how those metaphors develop and grow. Do you have a list? So I've got four here that I think, I don't know if we do all four in a video, they're organic and they connect together. One is God is dry land.

God is the dry land mountain rock. The second is the waters are danger, evil and chaos. The third one is humans relationship to animals. Humans at peace with the animals are humans that war with the animals. It's a fundamental biblical image. So image not metaphor. is a fundamental biblical image. So image not metaphor. Well, how humans relate to animals, whether hostile or at peace, is a core set of images. Humans at peace with animals,

humans at war with animals, or in danger from animals, those are two core underlying images that have a lot of resonance and meanings throughout the Bible. And the last one is the Garden of Eden River and the Tree of Life. So if you put those together, what you have is

the picture from Genesis 1 of the dry land, emerging out of the waters. We have the chaotic waters that are kept at bay. And on the dry land, you have Eden, the Eden temple, where God and humans and God and humans and animals are at peace together where the river of life gives eternal life to the sudwel on the dry land garden. That's all pages one and two. And almost all the water, garden, tree, animal, rock, imagery, and the whole Bible, like all drawn from that place back to riffing off of themes from pages one and two. It's so helpful. It's just like all of a sudden these images just pop now

when you come across them. Those become four anchor ones. Yeah, it's sort of like these are four basic conceptual metaphors or images in the biblical imagination. And the biblical poets will express those in all kinds of- These are the schemes. Yes, totally. Each one of those has a scheme that biblical poets then develop in and riff off. So let's talk about this first one. That God is somehow deeply connected to the dry land rock.

Yes, so in the midst of the waters. deeply connected to the dry land rock. Yeah, so in the midst of the waters. So I guess what I understand about this is that God provided land for humans and it came out of the waters. Correct. Yeah, that's correct. Okay, let's just start there. Okay, start there. So yeah, on page one, you have the land was wild and waste.

It's Genesis chapter one, verse two. The land was wild and waste. It's Genesis chapter one, verse two. The land was wild and waste, and dark was over the surface of the deep waters. Now right there, even we've talked about this before, you have two images laid on top of each other that seem, like if you're contradict, one's a wilderness wasteland, the other one's an ocean.

Yeah. An undulating stormy ocean. Right. Or is it both? Is it that there's land that's wild in the waste and there's an ocean that's... Oh, if you're actually trying to understand what this is referring to physically, but that's totally not the point here. The point is, there's no order yet. Yeah. The world is in its uncreated, unordered state.

So creation is going to be about the bringing about of order for humans, particularly. So the first we've talked about before, the first creative act of God is to separate the waters above from the waters below. So it's as if the horizon line is created. It's created, yeah. You know, imaginatively. And then you get the dome, this guy dome, with the water above it, and then the separated from the waters

that are the deep abyss. Because in the ancient imagination, there is a big reservoir of water above a bus. A bus? The Skydome. And sometimes it trickles down. Yep, the windows of the heavens open. Yeah. God controls windows, kind of thing. So if they're up there, then at some point,

it must have gotten up there. Yeah, if it rains, there's water up there. So maybe everything was just one big pool of water. Yes. But then somehow it was separated. God separated it. Correct, yeah, it's a separation of the waters. That's a day two.

Then the next day is let the waters under the skydome. The sea. Let them be gathered and let dry ground appear. It's like a thinkable volcanic island. Right. Emerging out of the sea. Out of the chaos. Yeah. Not that they knew about volcanic islands. And how yeah. Yeah. That works. There it's a conception of a dry space emerging out of the waters. Yeah. Which is a pretty good conception of if you look around and near an ocean. It's hot feels. You're like, oh yeah, we're on dry land and, oh, there's where it ends.

Yeah, if you're like in a sandy puddle and you scoop up a bunch of dirt in the middle, you're clump it up, you're gonna have a little island in the midst of the case. Yeah, so, and so, Genesis 1 is saying, the dry land between Habit is a divinely provided safe place from those waters of Wild and waste I don't belong out there. I can maybe get a boat and sail out there

But I can't but most people who do die it's right It's not my space. Yeah, my space is here on the drag round Yeah, so right there and who's the one doing all this, providing the dry ground? It's God. Yeah, just doing all this, okay? That's page one. It's giving you a fundamental image. The dry ground is this refuge from the waters. So I'm gonna do so far, but the title of this is God is the dry ground. Yeah, we'll get there. We'll get there. Just one step at a time. Page two, Genesis two. Okay. God planted a garden in the east.

So on the drylands there now, and then in the east of the dryland, God planted a garden in Eden, and Eden's the Hebrew word that means delight. And there he put the human, he informed. All these trees in the garden, so beautiful. The tree of life's there, the tree of knowing what is good and what is not good.

These two mystical trees. And it's very important. A river, a river was there, watering the garden, flowing out of Eden. And then... It turns into four rivers. After it leaves Eden, it's one river in Eden. After it leaves Eden, it separates into four rivers.

We're going to pick up the river in the next mountain. Yeah, in the tree. Yeah, in the tree and so on. Right now, we're just talking about the next metaphor. Yeah, in the tree. Yeah. Yeah, in the tree and so on. Right now, we're just talking about the dry land. Yep. So the idea is this big mound of dirt has emerged out of the waters. It's a safe refuge.

Now on the dry land. In the east. In the east. There's a certain realm called Delight. Aiden. Yeah. And beauty and a river. So there's some source, headwaters there,

and it's these waters provided that bring life and beauty to the garden. That's the image here. And it's divinely provided. God planted the garden. He's providing for the beauty and the... So now you get, God provides a dry land. He provides the garden on this mound here.

Eden. As you read on through the Bible, there's the storyline of the Bible progresses. Israel's temple in Jerusalem is a symbolic recreation of Eden, which makes you realize and go back that the Garden of Eden is being described as the temple. So for example this is here we get into poetry in Exodus chapter 15 this is the song of the sea that is realized saying after being delivered through the waters. And after recounting what just happened they look forward or excuse me Moses right looks forward to where God's leading them and

he says in your unfailing love you lead the people you have redeemed in strength you guide them to your holy dwelling you bring them in and plant them in the mountain of your inheritance the place O Lord you've made for your dwelling the sanctuary your hands have established. So here the conception is, the Israelites just came out of the dangerous waters. Right? Which we'll talk about. Which we'll talk about, but they come, they've been led through the waters to this cosmic mountain where God dwells on top.

And what's on top? Well, it's the mountain of your inheritance, your dwelling, your sanctuary, and you bring them in and you plant them there. It's a garden, planting, as if they're seed that you plant there on the sacred mountain top. This is all Genesis 1 and 2 imagery. So the conception of Eden and the dry land is that it's this cosmic mound that emerged out of the waters and Eden's like the divine temple where heaven and earth are together. So this is a good example where this is a poet riffing off of Genesis 1 and 2 style imagery of Eden as the cosmic mountain garden where God and his people

will live together in peace and harmony and so on. I mean just because it's 15 you're reading and then we're talking about planting people. It's the actual word plant. You plant people on the mountain of your inheritance where your dwelling is. All these images, right? Only makes sense in light of some more basic conceptual metaphor. Well, doesn't it make sense just in terms of the fact that the truce limb is on a hill? Correct, yeah, that's right.

So it a very literal sense, you can be like, oh, the mountain of your inheritance, yeah, truce limb. Yes. Dwelling in your sanctuary, yeah, the temple. Mm-hmm, that's right. And you will plant people there. Yeah. So people become these garden plants.

You're right, the metaphor is plant. Why is God planting people? Yeah. What is that? Yeah. Talking about. It's making it permanent and part of the ecosystem there. People are plants. People are plants.

Is she blossomed? Mm-hmm. Yeah, plants. People are plants. She blossomed. Yeah, totally. And think back to Genesis 2, God planted a garden and there he put the human he formed. It's almost like he planted them there. Yeah, totally. He's planting the trees and he's placing the humans. Yeah. And here he's planting the humans in planting the Israelites after they come out of the waters. So what I see here so far is the metaphor is that dry land or elevated land, more specific, is a place where God can create refuge and delight. Yes. The basic ideal of humans living at peace and in safety, at one with the presence of God,

is of a cosmic mountain temple garden. What do you keep saying cosmic? Oh, cosmic because we're talking about their concept of the cosmos. Correct, of the cosmos. How the world is ordered. Correct of the cosmos how the world is ordered Mm-hmm. Yeah, so for them order Language about safety and divine presence and order If you were to think of all the land on earth

Connected in one island And there was one mountain on top of that island. Mm-hmm. That's your cosmic Perspective. Yeah, that's right. And that's your cosmic mountain. And if there was a head waters that came from the mountain, that is the river that then turns into four rivers that waters the whole island. Right. Yeah. All four corners of the island. Yeah. And obviously you know, you walk around and you're like, oh, it's not one big island. There's right. Yeah, totally. Separated by different types of seas and peninsulas and different things. But that's the kind of yes. Mythic image or the big. It's a metaphor.

Yeah, it's a metaphor conceiving of the world as an island. Yeah, it is. It totally. We all live on an island. Yeah. And in a way, have you seen the Fuller projection? This guy named Buckminster, he made this, what's called the Fuller projection of a map. It's a way to show the name. A normal like world maps are distorted. Well, yeah, so we take a globe and you unfold it. You have to decide how are you going to unfold it so that it's flat. And the way we typically do it makes it so it really ends up showing how disconnected everything is. But what he does is he takes this platonic shape called like a hex something of another.

And he breaks up, you can kind of see the shape here. Yeah, yeah. So you could fold that into a globe. Wow. And when you unfold it, it looks like it's one island. It looks, yeah, aside from Australia, down in Australia is kind of... Australia is the loner.

And then also Antarctica. But... Oh, Antarctica, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But then everything else is strung together. Totally, it's all, yeah, really just looks like one big island. Yeah. South America, North, Asia. So yeah, if you're listening to this, look up fuller projection and you can see the

earth is one thing I'm gonna say. Wow, and then it places Africa in the normal type of position that Europe is. Oh, right, yeah. In our normal map, yeah. It's just upside down. Yeah. And in that. Yeah, South Africa is in the very top left corner of the map.

It's like it's in the northwest of this map. Right. It's where Alaska would be. South Africa is where Alaska would be. Wow, it's fascinating. So there you go. Yes. There it is, the island earth.

Okay, so I think this is important. So in other words, the imagery of the map, the cosmic map given to us, saved just even of the first pages of the Bible, right? So much debate and energy gets spent on trying to recreate that map in terms of our conception of planet Earth. Now, we settle it together with this. And so I just want to just say, wait, put the brakes on. Are we fundamentally miss appropriating

what this imagery is trying to communicate? Because if you look at how biblical authors use this dry land mountain temple Eden imagery, they use it as a source of imagery for what the images mean. So for them, the Eden as the garden temple on top of the dryland refuge is for them a fundamental image of heaven and earth together, of God and humanity, of humans in their ideal vocation and calling, image of God type of stuff.

Yeah. That's how biblical authors keep referring back to these images. Yeah, they're not trying to build precise map of the world. They're building a symbolic or metaphorical map. And the map that you have affects the way you think about the world. That's right. What, yeah, what framework could they have had of other than the one they had from just I, you know, just I observation looking around.

Well, and if you go back to this fuller thing, if you just looked at a typical map that you're used to. I see. So are you saying if I was Ray is looking at a fuller map instead of this kind of map? Yeah, and the reason why I would actually think of the world as an island. You kind of would. And that's why Buckminster did it that way, is because he wanted people to see how connected everything was really.

Because when you look at a typical map, it just, you see these big ocean separating landmasses. And so we all feel very disconnected. And you look at his and also you realize like, oh, it's all well strung together. Yeah. It's one little mass almost. Yeah.

And so it helps you start to think more globally actually and less separated. Yeah. That's powerful. It changes the way you think. Yes, it does. And so I guess what I hear you saying is Biblical authors are saying, you know, obviously they didn't have satellites. They didn't have catographers, is that the right word? I think so. Went around like making maps of the known world,

but they had a sense of their territory, obviously. Totally. And what they knew was that you go out in the ocean, you die. Most likely. Yeah. You stay on dry ground, you survive the higher up you are, the safer you are, generally. And with all that kind of basics understanding is going, okay, so my understanding of the world is that God has created this in such a way that where He wants us to be is that

peace with things, to be at peace is going to be high up and planted there. Planted on the dry land that was meant to become the garden. Yeah, garden around where we are actually changing nature to become ordered in a way that's good for humans. And it's one humanity. God doesn't make Israelites on page one of the Bible. He makes human. Yeah.

One, this is gonna be our family of God video. It's a unified conception of dry land. Mm. It's also a unified conception of humanity. Yeah. As one extended family. That's cool. So, this still doesn't help me understand.

How you say, God is a mountain for us. Oh, yeah, we'll get there. Here's another example from the book of Joel that just shows here's an Israelite poet who for him the connection between the dry land, mountain, Jerusalem, temple, Zion, and Eden. Look at how it leaks out of its consciousness here. So he says, below the trumpet is a Joel chapter two. Blow the trumpet in Zion. That's another name for Trusselam.

Sound the alarm on my holy hill, because the temple's on the hill. Let all who live in the land tremble, a large and mighty army comes. Before them, the lands like the Garden of Eden. He's thinking of Israel under the reign of David or Solomon, and for periods under their rule, it was like the ideal. Everyone under their vine and fig tree like the Garden of Eden. So he compares Jerusalem under the rule of

a few righteous kings to Eden. But once exile happens, Babylon comes through, it's like Tohu Vava, a desert waste. So he's using these images of Genesis 1 and 2 to describe. He doesn't, you know, an army coming and defeating us and taking us into exile. But he wants to talk about it in terms of it's cosmic significance. He's filling those historical events with cosmic meaning. He's placing them in a larger drama of God and creation. And so all of a sudden, the sacking of Jerusalem becomes like the garden being coming over ground,

becoming a desert wasteland. That's an idea. Okay. So, once again, the garden on the protected mountain is the fundamental default metaphor of humans. Thriving. Thriving a chalome. Yeah, the whole image of the ideal.

Yeah. There you go. Okay. Okay. Last step. Okay. Here's another poet, biblical poet, taking it another direction. This is Psalm 48. Yeah, this is a psalm, a poem by the sons of Korah, Psalm 48.

Great is the Lord, and most worthy of praise, in the city of our God, his holy mountain. Beautiful in its loftiness, the joy of the whole earth, like the far reaches of the north, is Mount Zion. The city of God the Great King. God is in her citadels. He is known to be her tall fortress. Walk about Zion, go around her, count her towers, consider her ramparts. You're getting the tour of Jerusalem. So the poem started, great is the Lord, and great is the city that is the host of his temple.

It's high and exalted, the whole earth finds joy in the temple in Jerusalem. Like the far reaches of the North, which is a way of talking about, that's what the Canaanites called Mount Hermann to the North, which is where they believed all the gods of their Pantheon. So he's explicitly saying Mount Zion, which is Yalways, temple, is the reality to it. The Canaanites, they've got their far reaches at the North. No, no, no, the real far reaches of the North. Yeah, yeah, because there's one island. That's right. Yeah, totally. They're going to be only one.

They're going to be on the mountain. If there's only one true creator god, there's only one highest peak with the one true god. Yeah. And it's not Bale's mountain up North. Right. That's the idea. with the one true God. And it's not Bale's mountain up north. That's the idea. So now take a tour around Jerusalem. Look at the walls, look at the ramparts so that you can tell them to the next generation. For this is God. Our God, forever and ever, He will guide us unto death. The poem ends. You said that verse 14 is hard to translate. Well, you've been looking at the city, the entire poem, right? I was just so clear.

The last line of the poem is, this is God. Our God, forever and ever, he will lead us all move under death. So the whole poem you thought, you've had in your mind, this is about the holy mountains, all the images coming together, and to be in the holy mountain, well, shish, that's where you're reconnected with the giver of life shish, that's where, you know, you're reconnected with the giver of life there, because that's where God is. And then all of the last line of the poem just says this, this whole thing that the poem has been about is our God, and he will guide us unto death. The thing, apparently this city is a citadel and a protector, right? All this stuff about the walls and the ramparts.

Yeah. It's defense. So the last line of the poem is like this kicker at the end where you're like, oh, I thought I was getting a tour of Ancient Jerusalem. But actually, I think I'm getting a tour of like the New Jerusalem. Hmm. And if I'm there, apparently I can be brought through death and out the other side, if I'm living here. That's what he means by guide us until death. The city is God.

That's what the last line of the poem says. This is God. So if I'm taking refuge in God, which is the protective city, who's the enemy? What am I being protected from? Oh, yeah, it's not other nations or it's not. Other nations is. So that last line of the poem equates God with the fortress Garden of Eden on the mountaintop. And to be in the fortress is to be defended from death,

apparently, says the last. So that last line of the poem with Psalm 48 is all of a sudden bringing this physical image of Mount Zion, Jerusalem, into the larger biblical drama of Eden. Eden is the place of, I got that. The river of life and the tree of life, and if humans are there, they live.

But the moment humans leave or are exiled or banished from the garden, they're in the realm of death because they're cut off from the source of life. You can see this poem is expressing, when this poem looks at the temple in Jerusalem, it fills his mind with a storyline about the meaning of life and about the source of life and what death is. So that's a good example. We just went on a long train of different texts from all over the Old Testament, but there's really just one basic storyline and one set of images that are being developed here. Now, so God is the city.

It's a metaphor. Yeah, totally. is the city, it's a metaphor. Yeah, totally. Yeah, because God is in a city. Correct. But you can take that schema of the cosmic mountain, and then you can say, okay, what are the elements that make this schema work, the height, the protection, the life that comes out of it, all these things. Now

attribute those to the character of God. And then you get this metaphor. Now couple questions. One is, is that really a predominant metaphor throughout scripture? Like you gave me one example, does it come up a lot? And then I guess the second question is, it's just one of many metaphors of what God is like, right? Correct. Yep, that's right. Well, so the second question is, it's just one of many metaphors of what God is like, right? Correct. Yep. That's right. Well, so the second question, you made a list of four that come out of what the first

one is just one and two. Just one and two. Yep. And so in my mind, I was thinking, oh, so these four are really important for the whole narrative scripture. So am I supposed to be thinking throughout scripture God like a cosmic mountain? Is that supposed to be a guiding metaphor or is it just kind of is it just one of many? It's one of many, but as you read through you come across it so many times It's clearly a dominant you can see why it was introduced to you on page one the dry land

garden mountain thing and Gosh if we just did a word study on rock fortress refuge Just in the book of Psalms alone. You're gonna get dozens of hits. I mean I just these are just a sampling But gosh, I don't even want to wait here. Let's do it real time. Do it I don't even want to wait here. Let's just do it real time. Do it. So I have 78 hits of rock fortress refuge in the book of Psalms. Out of like 150 Psalms. So an over half of the Psalms.

Mentioned. And for some of them, the Lord is my rock, my deliverer. He's a shield to those who take refuge in him. Every one of these is from different Psalms. O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. In the secret place, he'll hide me in his tent, lifting me up on the rock. That's Psalm 27. So the tent is the tabernacle. Which is on a high rock. You know, like, the tabernaclele was carried around was carried around the wilderness. Yeah, it actually Yeah, that's a good one to you. Oh Lord. I call my rock. Don't be deaf. So the rocks listen

The divine rock does right? Taste and see that the Lord is good eating you eat you eat the Lord you taste the Lord's goodness How blessed are those who take refuge in Him? So garden eating, and then cosmic mountain refuge. So we're combining garden mountain imagery from Genesis 1 and 2 here. Psalm 40, ooh, he brought me up out of the pit. That's what we'll get to the waters after this. He set my feet on the high rock.

So being brought up out of the mud and the waters, it being set on top of the mountain. And as you could say, oh, that's universal, right? The up is good and down is good. But you are reading the Hebrew scriptures that started with page one. For them, they're pulling from that image. So there's that quote you read,

I think at the end of the last conversation of surplus of meaning. Yes, that's right. Yes. An image, which is, it seems like, yeah, up as good, down as bad, but now it's connecting you to a story. Correct. So now it's not just a safe rock is connecting you to this idea of the divine sacred like territory that God designed for humans to flourish and be protected and thrive. Yeah, the high rock refuge safe from the waters has a very specific meaning in this story. And so this is an example of that being a very, that's a core metaphor to anyone in ancient Israel. It's just, well, I don't, it's the biblical author.

The biblical authors. Yeah. I mean, but like, I guess you can, like, there's basic metaphors that I just grow up with because they're just in culture. Yeah. So you can like there's basic metaphors that I just grow up with because they're just in culture. Yeah, so At least in some segment of yeah, however big the circle of Moses and the prophets Yeah, the local authors were yeah, you get the picture throughout the story that it's not it's in there Oh, okay, remember that he revivals minority report, but they still would have had oh there

But they're drawing on common ideas and yeah, because nowadays There's besides like Mount Olympus and stuff. Yeah, I don't go around thinking in terms of cosmic mountains Yeah, totally and it doesn't shape the way I Explain things or imagine things cosmic mountain was a common Cross-cultural way of thinking about the divine Relationship to our world. Yeah. The connection is that mountain top.

And their specific cosmic mountain was one where humans flourished with God. And it gets so layered though, because then it becomes the city of Jerusalem. Eat in this Jerusalem. And then it also becomes just a way to talk about God. Correct. Correct. Okay. Well, but think that images my brain hurts. Um, but think of it as God. So God plants the garden. Yeah. Why are what what is it that really gives the life to the humans in the garden of Eden?

It's not magic trees or magic rivers. It's the idea that God is the divine provider of life and sustenance. That's why to be exiled from the Garden is death. You're cut off from the source of life. And so God and the Garden, on top of the mountain, all become an associated set of ideas. And so I can take refuge in the temple. I can take refuge in Jerusalem. I can take refuge in God.. I can take refuge in Jerusalem. I can take refuge in God.

God himself can be my refuge. I can dwell in the shadow of your wings. In terms of the, like thinking of the Cherubim, the wings of the Cherubim, the overshadow, the Ark of the Covenant. So only the high priest goes in there once a year. And you know what I mean? Like take shelter under the wings,

but you have all these biblical poets talking about how they take shelter in God's wings. What does that supposed to mean? It means being connected to the ideal in the temple and Eden and Jerusalem and so on. These are just all connected ideas and they're going to be connected and even more of these metaphors, but that's I don't know. How you done? Yeah, I'm just trying to Trying to make sure I understand the significance of this. I mean in one sense we can just say hey Here's a metaphor. You probably don't even really think about but it's so basic A metaphor you probably don't even really think about, but it's so basic to the biblical imagination. There is a simple takeaway and now when I run into it, I can see it. Yeah.

Yeah. That's great. But now I kind of understand really what it's getting at. And is it just getting at security? Is it getting at the sense of the ideal? The ideal. The ideal. The ideal.

The pages one. It's getting at the ideal. What's the ideal state of human existence in God's world? Safe. So is the metaphor really the ideal is a mountain fortress? Is that the basic underlying metaphor? And God is just one kind of offshoot of that if like well that's the case God is ideal and so God also is like a real estate the ideal state is a mountain garden fortress yeah yeah okay and that helps me because I never think that for me my ideal state is you know sleeping in and then being able to read a book in my bed or something. Yeah, that's right. Or I don't know, my ideal place would be, you know, so funny is some people's ideal place is like actually on a cliff overlooking the chaotic world.

Yeah, sure. Sure. Like building their house on a bluff. Yeah, I know. Over stilt or whatever. Yeah, but that's their ideal place. Yeah. And that would not be the ideal place for it. Yeah, totally. Yeah, so know over or whatever. Yeah, but that's their ideal place and that would not be the ideal place where yeah Totally. Yeah, so the you're right page one is asking us to imagine the ideal state of humanity is

in covenant Relationship with God. Yeah, imaging God through creative work and responsibility on a Cosmic way on a mountain where it's stable and I can see everything, it's a fortress, safe from the threat of harm. It's a garden, it's beautiful. Abundance. Abundance.

Yeah, that's the idea. The ideal state is the mountain garden fortress. And that is what is created on pages one to the Bible. Yeah. And that gives the storehouse of imagery then for the biblical poets to talk about eternal life, to talk about the blessing of God through Abraham to all of the nations to talk about the new Jerusalem, to talk about what God can be to me in the midst of the chaos of my life.

Yeah. Cool. Yeah. That's the core image. Nice. The payoff. The payoff there. Mm-hmm. Thanks for listening to this episode

of the Bible Project Podcast. This episode was edited and produced by Dan Gummel. There is one more episode on biblical metaphors. Obviously, we could have many more episodes, but we're just going to do one more to talk about one final foundational Biblical metaphor that begins in Genesis and continues on and we've already alluded to it It is about the chaotic waters and danger

It's going to be great the Bible project is a non-profit crowd-funded Production company or in Portland, Oregon. We make videos, this podcast, other free resources. You can find it all on thebibletproject.com. Thanks for being a part of this with us. you you