The Metaphor of God's Word Through Nietzsche
The Holy Bible is a book written by man, which tells us the word of God. It was written almost two thousand years ago, in a language nothing like our own. It has been translated into thousands of languages in thousands of versions. Yet, people continue to read it, and practice its teachings, or some of them anyway. The Holy Bible is a perfect example of how people live in illusion, following ideas which people have forgotten than man wrote that are made of metaphors. Nietzsche says that truth is an army of metaphors which has been subjected to poetic and rhetorical intensification, translation and decoration, which, having been used for long periods of time, have become generally accepted by the people. (878) The bible is a prime example of this use of metaphors. Having been written about two thousand years ago, the book itself began as a series of stories passed on from person to person by word of mouth
People feel that the pain of this tragedy can be relieved by hearing stories of hardships in the Bible, and relating them to their lives, which, is another way the Bible can be seen as a metaphor. Some of the stories in the bible are pretty far out there. Through forgetfulness, human beings entertain the illusion that they possess a higher truth (876) about anything, especially the Bible. Even something as simple as the game "Whisper Down the Lane" teaches us that word of mouth is not a reliable way to give or get information. An example of this would be the record numbers of attendance in churches of all denominations after September 11. To some people, the fact that the bible is a metaphor for another kind of life that today we cannot fathom, makes it completely false, while to others, the metaphors are meant to be taken as fact, and practiced to the word, while to others still, the metaphors can be related to situations that people face today. Although the meaning of this story may be different to different denominations, each church had constructed its own meaning hundreds of years ago, and overtime, people have taken these meanings to be "The Bible", while forgetting that in reality, these meanings are from some guy who studied the Bible in college. The story of Moses parting the sea and wandering in the desert for forty years surely has been confused and rewritten incorrectly somewhere along the line. This is because the bible was written in a different time and place. Even simple details, such as the ages at which Noah and his family died, which range from about 700 to 900 years old, are somewhat unbelievable. It is a very complex book that needs to be studied, ripped apart, and put back together again. People forget that over time, the words and language contained within the Bible have taken on a set meaning, for example the story of Adam and Eve to some means that Woman created evil in the world. Perhaps the numbers chosen to represent the life span of Noah were a metaphor for something at that time. Overtime, people have forgotten the important fact that the Bible is not a literal book, and is not meant to be taken for its surface meanings. People have forgotten that no single book written that long ago has a one hundred percent relatable meaning to us, and that the Bible only means what you want it to.
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