Episode 21. Continuing with our discussion of the poetic language argument, it's important to understand that there are different categories of poetic language. For example, there are fanciful figures of speech in poetry. In Isaiah 55, we read, all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Now, do trees have hands? I doubt anyone reads this verse literally. There are also references to physical reality in poetry. Psalm 74 states, God established the sun and moon, and he set all the boundaries of the Earth. Does anyone want to write off the reality of the sun, moon, and Earth because they appear in poetry? I doubt it. Poetry also has scientific metaphors to depict physical reality. For example, in Isaiah 40, God stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. If we return to our diagram of the three-tier universe on pag6 of the handouts, we can understand how this verse in Isaiah 40 makes perfect sense to an ancient person. A tent depicts the ancient science of the three-tier universe, with a domed canopy in heaven overhead, and a flat floor of the tent representing the flat Earth below. It's important to note that the use of metaphors is part of science today. For example, we often refer to a magnetic field which uses the agricultural idea of a farmer's field to depict the force of a magnet. To conclude, in order to interpret passages in the Bible that are poetry, we need first to determine the type of poetic language being used by the author. For me, Philippians 2 is referring to physical reality and the ancient understanding that the universe was made up of three physical tiers. Another well-known, common hermeneutical response to conflicts between the Bible and science is the phenomenological perspective argument. The Greek noun phenomenon simply means appearance. This argument claims that statements about nature in the Bible are from the perspective of what they look like to the natural senses, for example, the naked eye. They're only phenomenological and merely visual effects. In fact, check any newspaper today and you will find the times for sunrise and sunset, but everyone knows that the sun does not literally rise or set. Therefore, do not take these statements literally. This argument is a little bit more sophisticated and closer to the truth. But we need to ask a critical question. When ancient people used the words sunrise and sunset, did they use these in the same way that we do today? And the answer is no. And the proof of this comes from history and the Galileo Affair. Up to the 1600s, people believed the Sun literally moved across the sky every day, and that the Earth literally did not move. Therefore, we need to distinguish two different categories of phenomenological perspective. The first is the ancient phenomenological perspective. What ancient people saw, they believed was actual, such as the Sun actually moves across the sky every day and that the Earth actually did not move. In contrast, through our modern phenomenological perspective, what we see with our eyes, we understand to be only an appearance. The so-called movement of the Sun is only an appearance and a visual effect caused by the Earth's rotation. And the so-called immovability of the Earth is only an appearance and a sensory effect caused by gravity. To conclude, if you write off statements in the Bible, like the sun rising and the sun setting, as merely an appearance, then you are reading your modern phenomenological perspective into the Bible, and of course, that is eisegesis. Instead, when reading an ancient text, we need to think like an ancient person. End of episode.