Figure of Speech

Most languages, I'm sure, have what we term "a figure of speech." It's our way of saying, "What I said was not literally what I meant." Some examples. We have hyperbole, an intentional exaggeration to make a point. We have metaphors, allegories, and similes to show how an idea we are trying to convey is like another that we all understand. We have myths, fanciful stories told to explain or present ideas. We use personification or anthropomorphism where we give human aspects to non-living things. And so on. You see, communication can be a difficult process and having a variety of tools at hand might be helpful.

Perhaps you caught my "might" in that last sentence. "Wait a minute! What do you mean 'might'? Isn't it always helpful?" We'd like to think so, but it's not always so. I'm amazed at the way in which people can use figures of speech as a means to eliminate speech. We often see this in discussions on the Bible.

I wrote about the failure of hyperbole in biblical discussions. People routinely take an explicit statement, render it "hyperbole," and then dimiss it. "Sure, it says 'There is none, good; no, not one,' but we understand that to be hyperbole. What it is trying to convey is that there are many, many who are good and the 'bad apple' is extremely rare." And ... poof! ... the text vanishes in a puff of hyperbolic smoke.

It happens all the time. "Hell" isn't hell; it's a metaphor ... where nothing bad actually happens and, in fact, no such thing exists." "God did not create the world; that's just a myth. The Genesis myth ends sometime around ... let's see ... Genesis 6. No, wait! That's the Flood. We'll arbitrarily push it out to Genesis 11. Oh, sorry, that won't work either. The whole Tower of Babel thing. So, look, can we just settle on Genesis 12? How about that?" Why? No reason. It's just that so much of what goes on from Genesis 1 through Genesis 11 doesn't align with preconceived notions. So we call it "myth" and we mean "nonsense." We pay it homage by letting it remain "myth," but the honor is short-lived -- we really dismiss it. And, again, we manage to use a "figure of speech" to eliminate speech.

We Christians routinely refer to the Bible as "the Word of God" and it is. Words are symbols intended to convey ideas from one mind to another mind. Our Bible is, according to the Bible (2 Tim 3:16-17) God's use of words to convey His ideas to our minds. He does it with a whole array of tools, from direct quotes to all manner of speech including hyperbole, metaphor, simile, allegory, story-telling, historic narrative, poetry, dogma ... on and on and on. If we allow the speech to speak for itself, it is, largely, not that hard to figure out. But, too often, we don't. We erect barriers and build walls and assure ourselves that our understanding is the right one by eliminating what it says when it disagrees with our understanding. It takes a brave, albeit foolish, soul to stand before God and say, "You got that wrong." Don't be that soul.