(August 27, 2019 at 2:30 am)Darwin1245 Wrote: Understanding a text metaphorically means that the meaning would change to whatever they want it to be just to seem consistent with today's cultures.
It occurred to me that in casual conversation we might imply that there are only two ways to read a text: literal and metaphorical.
I'm sure everybody knows what that means, and I don't intend to argue with you here. It might explicate how people use holy books better, though, if we open those terms out a bit.
As everyone knows, a metaphor is a specific kind of trope. X is Y. "Love is a Rose." Offhand I can't think of many metaphors in the Bible. Certainly the Song of Solomon is full of them, where he says his lover's eyes are jewels, and stuff like that. But I'm not able to recall any elsewhere. (No doubt others can think of some.)
This doesn't mean that much in the Bible is intended literally. Here is a list of tropes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figure_of_speech#Tropes
And to save you a trip, here are just the ones starting with A:
Quote:accismus: expressing the want of something by denying it[15]
allegory: A metaphoric narrative in which the literal elements indirectly reveal a parallel story of symbolic or abstract significance.[16][17][18]
allusion: Covert reference to another work of literature or art
ambiguity: Phrasing which can have two meanings
anacoenosis: Posing a question to an audience, often with the implication that it shares a common interest with the speaker
analogy: A comparison
anapodoton: Leaving a common known saying unfinished
antanaclasis: A form of pun in which a word is repeated in two different senses.[19]
anthimeria: A substitution of one part of speech for another, such as noun for a verb and vice versa.[20]
anthropomorphism: Ascribing human characteristics to something that is not human, such as an animal or a god (see zoomorphism)
antimetabole: Repetition of words in successive clauses, but in switched order
antiphrasis: A name or a phrase used ironically.
antistasis: Repetition of a word in a different sense.
antonomasia: Substitution of a proper name for a phrase or vice versa
aphorism: Briefly phrased, easily memorable statement of a truth or opinion, an adage
apologia: Justifying one's actions
aporia: Faked or sincere puzzled questioning
apophasis: (Invoking) an idea by denying its (invocation)
appositive: Insertion of a parenthetical entry
apostrophe: Directing the attention away from the audience to an absent third party, often in the form of a personified abstraction or inanimate object.
archaism: Use of an obsolete, archaic word (a word used in olden language, e.g. Shakespeare's language)
auxesis: Form of hyperbole, in which a more important-sounding word is used in place of a more descriptive term
No doubt the fact that they're all named with Greek words shows their origins. Greek orators, sophists, etc., studied the use of these. For a very long time, students of the Liberal Arts began with grammar (the background you need to read texts), logic (the tools you need to construct a reasonable text), and rhetoric (the tools you need to make a persuasive text). So they also learned to identify and use these tropes.
This is important because the authors of the Bible knew them. And the early readers of the Bible knew them. They were comfortable with a hundred kinds of non-literal expression, more than we are now. It was not a question of either telling the truth like a journalist or making shit up. It was standard in the olden days to write non-literally. And intelligent readers of holy texts, then and now, have to know this.
