Four examples show how engaging phrases can lead the imagination to overlook what is actually happening in the text.
First, consider the baptism of Jesus. Starting from the text, generations of painters, from medieval to post-Romanticist, have painted a dove descending onto Jesus during this event.
Yet the text does not tell us that a dove was present. We are told, depending on which one of the four accounts we study, and depending on which translation we read, that the Holy Spirit descended “like a dove” or “as a dove” onto Jesus. The eye can too easily ignore the words ‘like’ or ‘as’ and slide into a literal meaning.
Second, while Jesus was praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, we read that His sweat fell “like” drops of blood. Again, the mind goes quickly from simile to literal meaning.
Third, on the day of Pentecost, we are told that a sound “like” wind was present. Wind was not present.
Fourth, on that same day, we read that tongues “as of” fire, or “what seemed to be tongues of fire,” rested on the heads of those present.
In each case, the words, both in the English translation and in the original Greek, direct us away from the literal image. Yet the fascination with those literal images has endured over the centuries.
It is only with a great effort of the will that the disciplined reader can restrain his imagination from going beyond the text, indeed from going against the text, and making these specific and concrete figures part of the narrative.
In his commentary, author Richard Lenski avoids this trap in three of the four instances given. Regarding the dove at the baptism of Jesus, he writes:
We are not told that the Baptist saw “a dove;” what he was was “as a dove,” a bodily form, indeed, but one that was “as” a dove.
All four accounts of the event are explicit in asserting that what was present was not literally a dove:
Matthew writes “as a dove,” to which Luke adds “with bodily form” and places this dative of means before “as a dove.”
In which way was this manifestation of the Holy Spirit “like” a dove? In its sound? In its speed? In its soft landing? The question remains open.
We content ourselves by saying that the dove-like form intended to convey the idea of the graciousness of the Spirit.
Despite that fact that Lenski caught the simile in the narrative of the baptism, he does not find it in the scene at Gethsemane. Despite the same linguistic cues, he veers toward a literal rendering:
The intensity of the struggle produced such physical reaction that the sweat of Jesus became bloody. Severe mental distress and strain drive out sweat from the body, a fact that is constantly observed. The fact that this may reach the point where the tiny blood vessels of the skin are ruptured and permit blood to mingle with the sweat is attested medically. Aristotle speaks of bloody sweat as does Theophrastus, and in 1805 Gruner compiled medical data on the subject.
Concerning Pentecost, however, Lenski is again alert to the simile, and tells the reader that no wind, but merely a sound “like” wind, was present:
A violent noise sounded out of heaven, descended, and filled the entire building where the assembly was sitting on the floor in Oriental, cross-legged fashion. Luke compares the sound to that of a violent wind borne along, i.e., moving forward. It was sound alone and not a wind. The roar started in the sky but soon filled only the house. This mighty sound was surely the symbol of power.
Continuing the Pentecost account, Lenski tells us that “no actual fire” was on the heads of those present:
The second phenomenon was that of tongues resembling fire and distributing themselves to each person present. There was no actual fire but only a resemblance to fire. This aorist again registers only the fact and not the duration of the appearance. The crowd speaks only of what it hears and not of what it sees. We may conclude that the flamelike tongues had disappeared by the time the crowd had gathered. Luke writes, “distributing themselves,” and then adds, “it sat upon each single one of them.” Lude does not intend to write a subject just as have none when we say, “it rains,” “it is lightning,” etc. Perhaps we may say that the flamelike tongues appeared in a great cluster and then divided until a tongue settled on the head of each one of the disciples.
Perhaps there are other examples of overlooked similes. Metaphors are more ambiguous, but similes contain vocabulary items which clearly alert the reader to the non-literal use the language.
