Issue link: http://denverseminary.uberflip.com/i/977325
"WHAT HAS BEEN WRITTEN WITH IMAGINATION MUST BE READ WITH IMAGINATION!" THIS CHALLENGE BY RENOWNED SPANISH BIBLE SCHOLAR LUIS ALONSO SCHÖKEL HAS BECOME A GUIDING PRINCIPLE FOR HOW I HAVE READ THE BIBLE IN RECENT YEARS. The first half of the 21st century is an exciting time for reading the Bible with imagination. Modern linguistics help us understand how words acquire different meanings in different contexts, and how word combinations produce meaning that far outstrips the sum of the individual words. It helps us to see ambiguity as an asset rather than a setback. Through modern hermeneutics, we can read biblical texts with humility and expectation. Modern scholars of the Bible have helped us overcome simplistic ideas about ancient texts and rediscover their beauty as classics of world literature and as imaginative expressions of men and women of God. We're inspired by modern critical theory to ask fresh questions of familiar texts, invited to rediscover their modern relevance, and empowered to become proactive participants in the Bible's production of transformative meaning. THE POWER OF THE METAPHOR Modern study of metaphors helps us to understand how the metaphors we use to speak of complex problems shape our thinking and our lives. In recent decades, analytical cognitive scientists and computer scientists have compiled empirical evidence, demonstrating that mind and body are inextricably linked. According to George Lakoff, "Thought is carried out in the brain by the same neural structures that govern vision, action, and emotion. Language is made meaningful via the sensory-motor and emotional systems, which define goals and imagine, recognize, and carry out actions." 1 Metaphor arises "from the interaction of brains, bodies, languages, and culture," 2 and is prevalent in other domains of human experience, including gesture, art, and music. Metaphors are simultaneously ordinary and spectacular: "Metaphor is creative, novel, culturally sensitive, and allows us to transcend the mundane while also being rooted in pervasive patterns of bodily experience common to all people." 3 The metaphor has the power to reshape our imagination. It has the ability to "create new modes of understanding often accompanied by special aesthetic pleasures," 4 writes Raymond Gibbs. And the Bible is full of them! DISCOVERING ADVENTURE IN THE PAGES OF SCRIPTURE In many ways, we have arrived in a new territory of the mind that awaits our discovery—a land wide open to the interpretive imagination, inviting us to embark on an exciting adventure that can change our own lives; our political, cultural, and ethical values; and consequently our world for the common good. Such imaginative and responsible Christian reading requires skill and imagination, and the church needs to be challenged and empowered to acquire these interpretive virtues. This is why seminary education remains absolutely crucial for the church today in the United States of America and around the globe. It is here that the next generation of pastors and teachers, evangelists and prophets, so vital for the church's wellbeing, continue to be trained and inspired. The metaphor has the power to reshape our imagination. It has the ability to "create new modes of understanding often accompanied by special aesthetic pleasures." In what follows, I want to highlight three practical consequences that arise from a more imaginative reading of the Bible. 8 SPRING 2018 MAKES YOU THINK Ann Mei/iStock 1 George Lakoff, Foreword in Benjamin Bergen's "Louder Than Words: The New Science of How the Mind Makes Meaning," 2012. 2 Raymond Gibbs. Metaphor and Thought: The State of the Art, 2008, p. 4. 3 Ibid., p. 5. 4 Ibid., p. 5.