This series has gone on long enough and I want to finish it off, but there are still a few loose ends to tie up. There are odd subjects and questions that need answers so I’ll tackle a few in this final blog:
What about figurative language?
The automatic answer that comes when you ask the meaning of these descriptions is “figurative language”. The obvious retort is “figurative of what?” I would be the last one to say that all the references I’ve given were intended to be literal. There is obviously some complex imagery in use. And don’t leave out truly figurative geographical and cosmological language like Psalm 98: rivers clap hands, mountains sing, or Isaiah 49, where the sun can “smite”. Without going over every detail, let’s look at a few examples:
(i) “The skies, hard as a mirror of cast bronze”. (Job 37:18) Job did not think the skies were a “mirror of cast bronze”, but he didn’t know what they really were. A simile.(ii) “The water jars of heaven”. (Job 38:37) The water is held up there somehow, but Job didn’t really know how. He refers to water jars; other places refer to storehouses and floodgates. These are metaphors, without the actuality ever being defined.
(iii) “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow?” (Job 38:22) Another great metaphor for what is above the firmament. It reminds me of the little glass villages that, when shaken, sprinkle snow on the scene.
(iv) “He has pitched a tent for the sun”. (Psa.19:4) Another metaphor for the place the sun goes at night.
(v) “The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up.” (Rev.6:14) Yet another simile, apparently showing a view from earth directly into heaven. The opening of the Skydome in Toronto might be a good comparison.
What is accommodation?
The ancient writers described the cosmos as they understood it (again, flat earth, domed sky, pillars holding up the earth and the heavens, and so on). This is called “phenomenological” language. “Accommodation” describes God’s attitude to those writers—in His own revelation of Himself, He gave spiritual teaching that they could never have learned without Him. On the other hand, they had their own understanding of daily life and the visible cosmos. The Bible is not a scientific book and so God didn’t give them twenty-first century science—or any other century than their own.
Who put all the “phenomenological language” into the Bible?
Most of the phenomenological language is from the original writers, e.g., sunrise, sunset, ends of the earth, floodgates of the heavens, storehouses of the snow. Many of these words are so embedded in our language that we hardly know any other way to talk about the event. No daily weather report mentions “the moment when the sun first becomes visible in the morning”— that is “sunrise”.
What is the significance of silence?
Silence in some ways confirms the premise of this whole blog. For instance, there is no mention of North and South America or Australia in the Bible. The obvious reason is that the writers didn’t know about them and being non-spiritual pieces of geographical information, God didn’t clue them in. This is in exact parallel to the fact that He didn’t tell them any new science either.
What about semantics?
Do we have to be so particular about classifications? A star was simply a light in the sky or even a constellation or a conjunction of planets—it could still be a planet or a comet or a meteor. In the animal world a bat was listed with birds (see Lev.11:19) simply because it was an animal that flew. Jonah was swallowed by a great fish (Jonah 1:17), never mind that generations of readers have called it a whale.
Can we cite a few extra-Biblical references that “accommodate”?
Here are five examples from different eras. Some of the writers believe their statements literally, some “accommodate”, some are just harking back to the old way of thinking for poetic effect.
(i) Bernard of Cluny (12th century), Jerusalem the Golden [The Celestial Country]. “That worms should seek for dwellings Beyond the starry sky!”
(ii) Shakespeare (1564-1616), The Merchant of Venice. “Sit, Jessica: look, how the floor of heaven Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:”
(iii) Shakespeare, Sonnet When in Disgrace with Fortune and Men’s Eyes. “…The lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate.”
(iv) Donne, John (1572-1631). Divine Meditations, 7. At the round earth’s imagined corners, blow Your trumpets, angels, and arise, arise From death, you numberless infinities Of souls, and to your scattered bodies go…
(v) Quine, E.C. (1857-1942), BHB Hymn #386, verse 1. “Glory to Thee, enthroned above the sky…”
Conclusion
As I said at the beginning, I have over 200 Biblical references to cosmology and geography. This entire series has touched on only half of them. A belief in Biblical inerrancy has difficulty with this “accommodation” position and so often falls back on the “figurative language” explanation. We have to leave the whole matter of Biblical cosmology in the hands of the ancient writers, themselves. God, of course, knows the ultimate truth about cosmology and He won’t deceive us.
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