Journal: Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry
Volume: JBTM 20:2 (Fall 2023)
Article: The Bible Is Food: Metaphors, Models, And Method For Theological Interpretation Of Scripture
Author: Micah Chung

The Bible Is Food: Metaphors, Models, And Method For Theological Interpretation Of Scripture

Micah Chung

Micah Chung serves as adjunct instructor of Theology and Ethics at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Introduction

Ask scholars today, “What is a text?” and their answer will likely come in a metaphor. Theologians especially love their metaphors for describing the text of Scripture. Scripture is a mirror, a theatrical script, a musical score, a cathedral, a rule book, a user’s manual, a lamp, a love letter. But how did metaphor, which in the eighteenth century was seen as a deceptive rhetorical trick, become such a prominent tool for speaking of Scripture? In this paper, I explore the theological use of metaphor to describe the nature and interpretation of Scripture. I first trace a brief history of metaphor–from Aristotle’s Poetics to George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s Metaphors We Live By–to show how metaphors become system-shaping models for understanding the nature and interpretation of texts like the Bible. I then survey two current models for the Bible–Kevin Vanhoozer’s “The Bible Is a Theo-Dramatic Script” and Anthony Thiselton’s “The Bible Is a Musical Score”–and evaluate them based on their faithfulness to Scripture and fittingness to the current culture. I then query the biblical text to propose a model for Scripture drawn from Scripture itself, that of “Scripture Is Food,” and from this food model, I outline some methodological implications for interpreting Scripture.

Metaphor: A Brief History

What is a metaphor? The first known analysis comes from Aristotle in his Poetics and Rhetoric (c. 330 BCE).1 He defines the Greek word metaphora as “giving a thing a name that belongs to something else.”2 This name transference enhances speech with liveliness,

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beauty, clarity, persuasiveness, and extension of knowledge. Given these benefits, Aristotle calls metaphor “a sign of genius” that cannot be taught, so that “the greatest thing by far is to be a master of metaphor.”3

Fascinatingly, “this first theorization of metaphor does not consider it as a mere ornament of discourse but assigns it a cognitive function.”4 In other words, metaphors do something to the mind: They cause the mind to reach “beyond” the metaphor’s naming function to see new meanings, new horizons, new ways of understanding the world. For example, Aristotle observes that pirates like to refer to ...