Paul Ricoeur believes that metaphors not only provide information, but also convey truths. When people express non-image concepts with image-based language, they use metaphor. Reading Biblical metaphor is to look for God through reading. Metaphors are used throughout the Bible as a means of pointing to truths and as a tool to allow readers to recognize God. How has the Bible enabled millions of believers for centuries to serve God despite the limitations of human language? The answer is that God reveals Himself through metaphor, allowing people to know His value. The use of metaphor is not only a literary device designed for aesthetic purposes; the main purpose of metaphor is to express concepts that are difficult to describe directly.
This article uses conceptual metaphor theory (CMT) from Metaphors We Live By (Lakeoff & Johnson, 1980, 2003) and blending theory (BT) by Fauconnier and Turner (1995) as analysis strategies for Biblical texts, they are also one kind of tool of organizing information at the same time.
Metaphor is a type of inspirational linguistic phenomenon; a linguistic device that enables people¡¦s minds to ascend to a higher place. Biblical metaphors are extremely rich, and this article offers only an initial analytical interpretation of the four main themes of Biblical metaphors: The exploration of God¡¦s nature and attributes; to see the default table of the Old Testament and the intertextuality of the New Testament; the characteristics of believers; and the interactive relationship between God and man, including God¡¦s will for humanity. Using these four basic and essential themes, this study explores how the Bible uses metaphor to convey abstract concepts and relate communications between God and man, as well as exploring how moral lessons are conveyed through metaphors, enabling the average person to understand them.
In addition, in a position of Biblical readers to explore how readers use their own experience and cognitive abilities regarding metaphors to ascertain the true meaning of faith, including metaphorical thinking of the solutions, the experience of faith is the extension of the metaphor. ¡¨Christ¡¨ is the necessary key for Biblical interpretation, as well as the metaphor is possible as an edge tool of cognition & expression, that is, Biblical readers can transfer the implication of belief through the modes of metaphor understanding per the information provided by Bible. Using the same principle, the reading technique of metaphorical cognition can be applied to other texts as a method of interpreting meaning¡Xespecially abstract meaning.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0705112-123435 |
| Date | 05 July 2012 |
| Creators | Ou, Hsiu-Hui |
| Contributors | Jen-nien Ts, Qing-yuan Chen, Shi-zhen Chou, Jer-shiarn Lee, Jian-Shiung Shie, Ya-hui Yang |
| Publisher | NSYSU |
| Source Sets | NSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive |
| Language | Cholon |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0705112-123435 |
| Rights | user_define, Copyright information available at source archive |
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