You know, if anybody ever caught you looking at the Bible and reading it,
and thinking; I think this is just metaphorical here and not literal.
You know, people would recoil in horror, like you've just denied inspiration.
So not only can't we make certain assumptions about is literal best,
would we sort of while we're mentally evaluating a word's meaning,
would we land at the same place as an ancient writer?
Again, all that's the case.
But these two issues are the metaphorical is often what was intended,
not only intended but necessary.
In other words, the writer just didn't have any other options.
And when that's the case, it's hard or harder,
to necessarily know what to do with something.
We have to at first, realize that this is the best the writer could do.
Metaphorical meaning, when he used these words, he just had to be tracking on that.
Because there was really no realistic alternative.
And then the second sub issue is that sometimes the biblical writers were
thinking literally, but what they were thinking doesn't actually correspond to reality.
So we've got two issues. There's necessity in using metaphor.
And then there's the problem of: well, they were thinking literally,
but we know some things that they didn't know.
And it just doesn't work to look at this literally.
Because of some... if something's true, it doesn't matter what severe it's in,
truth is going to correspond to reality. By the way, if you're into apologetics,
this is one of the most important principles in apologetics:
That truth needs to correspond to reality.
It's called the Correspondence Theory of Truth,
as opposed to the Congruence Theory of Truth.
Truth just sort of needs to rhyme with reality or sort of be, you know,
in the ballpark somewhere relatable.
No, there's correspondence, and then there's congruence.
Well, we also have to remember and I'm going to take us into illustrations
of both those sub issues. Reality and metaphor are not oppositional.
literality and metaphor are both, I should say, ARE both real.
So the literal meaning isn't the one that we use when we think
something's real, and the metaphorical meaning isn't something we use
when we're denying something is real.
That is not true. But I remember growing up as a believer, again, in my
initial Christian context, which overwhelmingly was a good one.
This sort of notion that,
if anybody ever caught you looking at the Bible and reading it,
and thinking; I think this is just metaphorical here and not literal.
You know, people would recoil in horror, like you've just denied inspiration.
It's like, no, I mean, it's not always the same.
Well, it's God's Word, we have to literally believe... Well, I do believe it,
but I'm talking about the word meaning, not the theology.
But they couldn't sort of navigate that.
It was difficult. Both of them are real. Metaphorical meaning actually realize,
to some extent on literalism. «I am the bread of life.» This statement by Jesus,
we know is metaphorical because Jesus wasn't a loaf of bread. Okay.
But it only has meaning if bread is a real thing.
Like if the audience has to know what bread is to get what's going on.
It was the staple of the first century diet. It was absolutely essential to subsistence.
Okay, they don't go to McDonald's. They don't get Uber Eats.
They don't go to the grocery store. They're literally making bread every day.
And I think it's even engrained in the verbiage because in Hebrew,
«Lechem», both means bread, and it can be broadly used for just food generally.
I mean, this is a big deal. Bread is a big deal in the ancient world,
the ancient economy, the ancient diet. So it's real, and when Jesus says;
I'm the bread of life, it's like you're the thing that that's going to sustain us
from day to day, to day, to day. It has meaning because bread is real.