INTERPRETATION OF IMAGES

By George Card

One of the biggest problems in studying the scriptures is the interpretation of images. The bible uses many images, probably half of the Bible uses imagery to convey God’s message. The improper interpretation of those images has sometimes been the cause of erroneous doctrines.

Understanding figures of speech will helps us to avoid some of those misunderstandings. I will not go into technical terms like Anthropomorphism, Euphemism, Hypocatastasis or any other such literally terms. I prefer to keep it simple. Of course those who want to better understand how images are used in the Bible could profit from an advanced class on those literary devices.

There are really no fast rules to follow when reading the imagery of the Bible. It is mostly a matter of reading using common sense. By this I mean if the text tells you that what follows is a parable or a story then you should take it as such. If the text uses the word “like” or “as” then what follows is most likely some kind of comparison. When Jesus calls Herod a “fox” he is not saying that Herod is a literal fox, but simply a matter of making a comparison.

If the imagery contradicts a doctrine or commandment in the Bible then obviously it is a symbolic text.  When Jesus said to eat his flesh and drink his blood, he did not literally ask us to become cannibals that would be a violation of God’s commandments. We have to take into account the whole of the Bible regarding any doctrine before we interpret a figurative text as literal. If the interpretation contradicts prior texts then we need to reevaluate how we are interpreting such text.

The Bible tries to teach us spiritual heavenly concepts that are beyond our natural understanding by using things that we already are familiar with. Although God is an invisible spirit and beyond our comprehension, the Bible often presents him to us having human attributes like eyes and hands; but sometimes even uses non-human attributes like God having wings.

The prophetic images sometimes cause a lot of confusion and chaos to those who are untrained in understanding that such images are to be interpreted in symbolic manners. The devil is not a literal dragon, but the bible uses the imagery of a dragon to impress upon us the power of this being.

There have been and will probably always be some people who misunderstand the imagery of the Bible and will take literally some things that were never meant to be taken literally and of course there will also be those who spiritualize things that should be taken literally. Unfortunately common sense cannot be taught. We need to realize that taking things figuratively which should be taken as literally and vice versa will often produce absurdities and the Bible does not promote absurdities.