WATERING BARREN GROUND: METAPHOR IN THE BRAIN, BIBLE, AND SCIENCE - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

WATERING BARREN GROUND: 
 METAPHOR IN THE BRAIN, BIBLE, AND SCIENCE

E Janet Warren ASA 2016

COGNITIVE PROCESSES
 RATIONAL VS NON-RATIONAL

⦿ Slow ⦿ Logical ⦿ Rational ⦿ Reflective ⦿ Deliberate ⦿ Goal-directed ⦿ Automatic ⦿ Rapid ⦿ Unconscious ⦿ Experiential ⦿ Emotional ⦿ Creative ⦿ Intuitive

ENLIGHTENMENT LEGACY


⦿Logic ⦿Reason ⦿Truth ⦿Intellect ⦿Men

⦿ Intuition ⦿ Imagination ⦿ Emotions ⦿ Superstition ⦿ Women

RETURN TO IMAGINATION

⦿ “Realities beyond our ken must be depicted in

symbol and myth or else not at all”

(Paul Avis)

⦿ “The greatest truths can only be expressed in

imaginative form” (Avis)

⦿ We must overcome our “long addiction to the

discursive, the rationalistic, and the prosaic”

(Amos Wilder)

⦿ “Science is all metaphor”

(Timothy Leary)

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: DEFINITIONS

⦿ Imagery

broad term referring to language that triggers an

imagined picture and elicits an experiential connection

⦿ Symbol image, word, or behavior with multiple levels

• f meaning

stands for concepts too complex for direct

language

DEFINITIONS

⦿ Metaphor:

“speak about one thing in terms which are seen

to be suggestive of another.” (Soskice)

“that figurative way of speaking. . . in which one

• reality. . . is depicted in terms that are more

commonly associated with a different reality” (Macky)

⦿ Model:

“a comprehensive metaphor with organizing,

structural potential” (McFague)

“an imaginative tool for ordering experience.”

(Barbour)

METAPHORS: CONCEPTUAL

⦿ systematic and based on conceptual

correspondence between two ideas, not simply similarities (Lakoff & Johnson)

⦿ one idea can incorporate a “coherent system

• f metaphorical expressions”

(Lakoff & Johnson)

⦿ “Metaphor is a semantic event that takes

place at the point where several semantic fields intersect” (Ricoeur)

METAPHORS: SEMANTIC POWER

⦿ taken from a familiar realm and applied to an

unfamiliar one; one is used as a lens through which to see the other

⦿ create new similarity ⦿ Semantic innovation ⦿ Irreducible, untranslatable ⦿ act as a vehicle for discovery ⦿ multiple metaphors provide multiple

snapshots of reality

BARBOUR: 
 SCIENTIFIC & RELIGIOUS MODELS

⦿ analogical ⦿ help order and explain observations ⦿ offer partial views of reality ⦿ recognize that all experience is interpreted. ⦿ function to understand reality ⦿ not a literal picture, but often make some

• ntological claims

METAPHORS: BIBLE & THEOLOGY

⦿ illumination of the unknown by the known ⦿ almost all language about God is

metaphorical (G.B. Caird)

⦿ “if we lose touch with biblical imagery, we

lose the real meaning of the Bible.” (M. Barker)

⦿ Twice-true metaphors, e.g., Exodus

CREATION: BIBLICAL IMAGES

⦿ God draws a circle on the face of the deep

(Job 26:10; Prov. 8:27)

⦿ he forms humans from dust (Gen. 2:7) ⦿ the Spirit hovers over the waters (Gen. 1:2) ⦿ God divides the waters (Gen. 1:7) ⦿ he waters the barren ground (Gen. 2:6) ⦿ he slays sea monsters (Ps. 89:10) ⦿ he calls forth the starry host (Ps. 136:5–9) ⦿ he stretches out the heavens (Isa. 40:22)

CREATION: ANCIENT WORLD

⦿ contain little information concerning material

• rigins.

⦿ precreation state is not absent of matter but

absent of function.

⦿ creation involves the giving of functions often

in terms of separating, naming, and assigning roles.

⦿ temple and cosmos are largely synonymous

(homological), each representing an image of the other.

CREATION: GENESIS

⦿ “not the philosopher inquiring about his

• rigins...it was man threatened by his
• surroundings. The background was an

existential, not an intellectual problem” (Westerman)

⦿ Not something/nothing, but chaos/cosmos,

life/death

⦿ Theology of the Sabbath

(Blocher)

⦿ World dependent on God (Löning & Zenger)

MODELS OF CREATION

⦿ Temple cosmology ⦿ Textual similarities ⦿ The temple is a “visual vehicle for the

knowledge of God” (Levenson)

⦿ “Geography is simply a visible form of

theology” (Levenson)

⦿ Temple is a microcosm of the universe

TEMPLE SYMBOLISM

SIMKINS’S HORIZONTAL MODEL OF SACRED SPACE

SIMKINS’S VERTICAL MODEL OF SACRED SPACE

SMITH’S MODELS

⦿ Divine power

“

⦿ Divine wisdom

“

⦿ Divine dwelling

“

CREATION AS DIVINE POWER

⦿ Psalm 74

⦿ 13 It was you who split open the sea by your power;


you broke the heads of the monster in the waters.


14 It was you who crushed the heads of Leviathan


and gave it as food to the creatures of the desert.


15 It was you who opened up springs and streams;


you dried up the ever-flowing rivers.


16 The day is yours, and yours also the night;


you established the sun and moon.


17 It was you who set all the boundaries of the earth;


you made both summer and winter.

CREATION AS DIVINE WISDOM

⦿ Psalm 104

⦿ 3 He makes the clouds his chariot


and rides on the wings of the wind.


4 He makes winds his messengers,[a]


flames of fire his servants.

⦿ 5 He set the earth on its foundations;


it can never be moved.


6 You covered it with the watery depths as with a

garment;
 the waters stood above the mountains.


7 But at your rebuke the waters fled,


at the sound of your thunder they took to flight

CREATION AS DIVINE WISDOM

⦿ Job 38 ⦿ “Where were you when I laid the earth’s

foundation?


5 Who marked off its dimensions? …Who stretched

a measuring line across it?


6 On what were its footings set,


• r who laid its cornerstone—


7 while the morning stars sang together…
 8 “Who shut up the sea behind doors


when it burst forth from the womb,


9 when I made the clouds its garment


and wrapped it in thick darkness,


10 when I fixed limits for it…
 11 when I said, ‘This far you may come and no

farther…’?

CREATION AS DIVINE PRESENCE

⦿ “He built his sanctuary like the heights,


like the earth that he established forever” (Ps 78:69)

⦿ “Heaven is my throne,and the earth is my

• footstool. Where is the house you will build

for me?” (Isa 66:1)

⦿ “The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator

• f the ends of the earth…his understanding no
• ne can fathom. He gives strength to the

weary and increases the power of the weak (Isa 40:28, 29)

CREATION AS DIVINE PRESENCE

⦿ “The Word became flesh and made his

dwelling among us” (John 1:1)

⦿ “For since the creation of the world God’s

invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made…” (Rom 1:20)

PSALM 8 VS GEN 1

⦿ You have set your glory above the heavens…


3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your

fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established;


4 what are human beings that you are mindful of

them, mortals that you care for them?

⦿ 5 Yet you have made them a little lower than

God, and crowned them with glory and honor.


6 You have given them dominion over the works of

your hands..


7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the

field,8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea…

9 O LORD, our Sovereign,


how majestic is your name in all the earth!

WATERING BARREN GROUND