Metaphors
by Catherine Fata
Thumbing through my Bible recently, I came across references to Zelzah, Malki-Shua, anointing rituals, the gods Dagon and Asherah, lamentations, and exchanging sandals when an agreement was made. These things were perfectly relevant for the Israelites, but not so much for me. Now, more than 2000 years after the birth of Christ, how can we integrate Christian values into our everyday lives?
Unless I’m forced to consider the Bible as “literature” in a class, many parts of the Bible at times seem, quite frankly, irrelevant to me. I know that my God is the same as Moses’ God but, as often as I’m faced with a sea of anything but textbooks to part, sometimes the trials and tribulations that Moses faced don’t quite resonate with me.
I think a good starting point is a basic knowledge of the time period. The sandal thing for example: people (well, men really) used to exchange their right sandals before witnesses rather than shake hands to seal a contract or an agreement. “Lamentations” refers to the period of mourning after someone has died.
No one is suggesting that we all become Israeli historians or anything. But when traveling to another country, or even another state, one customarily makes an attempt o learn at least a few key phrases from the language or a bit of history or customs. (I came from Indiana to New York City, and believe me, it was like another language). Reading the Bible can be looked at in the same way. It’s like venturing into a strange new land hoping to absorb all that we can from the local people or the place. Here I’ll quote Oprah (who might have plagiarized the line from some philosopher, leaving me off the hook) “you’ll get out of it what you put into it.”
We’ve all read Shakespeare, wrapping our minds around the love story surrounding Romeo and Juliet, or the betrayal and the tragedy of Macbeth. I remember first reading Romeo and Juliet in sixth grade. “He doth do this or that” meant very little to me, but my teacher patiently dissected each and every line and explained the meaning behind it. With this kind of clarification, I began to see that the story written hundreds of years ago actually dealt with universal issues that even a sixth-grader could relate to. Hence, movies like “The Lion King” and “10 Things I Hate About You.” That’s why Shakespeare became famous, and why teachers still force us to read his works.
The extended Shakespeare metaphor was only intended because most people understand that his plays really do resonate with any generation. He writes about human emotions like love, lust, sadness, and loyalty. The Bible contains stories of these emotions common to all humans inspired not by one of the world’s greatest writers, but instead, inspired by the Divine. If we can look past the archaic references and see the Bible more as a manual of advice, both of what we should do and what we should not, imagine what we could do in our lives.
And if all else fails, there are SparkNotes for both the Old and New Testaments.
