All Bible readers find that the Biblical writers use figures of speech; these are not meant to be taken literally but to add vividness to what is being said. As in African traditional society, vivid story telling and description was enjoyed and appreciated in ancient Palestine. For example, when Jesus describes King Herod Antipas as 'a fox' (Luke 13 : 32) he does not mean that Herod is really a specimen of the animal known as a fox, but that Herod who is a man, however bad, resembles a fox in certain aspects of his character.

Figure 2: King Herod Antipas

Similarly, when Jesus says that his opponents strain out a fly and swallow a camel when they drink, he does not really mean that even the most hypocritical person could swallow a camel without noticing it. Jesus is using a figure of speech known as hyperbole (exaggeration) to make his words more vivid and therefore easy to remember. If we turn to the teachings of the Old Testament prophets and to the poetry of the Old Testament, we can find many examples of vivid speech and the use of figures of speech. The prophet Nathan opened King David's eyes to his sin of adultery by the story of the rich man who stole the poor man's only lamb. Amos refers to the fat, well-fed women of Samaria as cows;

Hosea compared Israel's worship of idols with prostitution; and Jeremiah spoke of the wine cup of God's anger from which the nations would drink until they fell down in a state of drunkenness. When Psalm 91 speaks of God covering the believer with his wings, it does not mean that God has wings like a bird, but the vivid mental picture given to us by these words helps us to understand that God's love protects us as the wings of a hen protect the young chickens. These examples illustrate spiritual truth expressed in the images of everyday life.

The difficulty arises over the question of how far Christians understand the narratives of the Bible to contain analogy and metaphor. There is a kind of extended metaphor known as an allegory in which a complete story is made up to have a symbolic meaning and everyone knows that the story is not meant to be literally true; its significance is in its symbolic meaning. Many of the traditional stories of Africa are allegories or symbolic stories. The parables of Jesus are vivid stories which he made up to illustrate his teaching about God and the rule of God in men's lives. When Jesus told the parable of the sower he was not telling the story of a particular farmer but he was comparing the sowing of seed with the spreading of the word of God: in fact he goes on to explain this to his disciples. Some Christians understand stories such as that of the prophet Jonah, the Creation story, and the story of Adam and Eve in the garden, to be similar to the parables of Jesus, that is as allegories and not the record of actual events.

Figure 3: Jonah is thrown in the sea

They see the importance of these stories as being in their spiritual meaning. Other Christians, however, would maintain that these stories are about events which actually happened.

Such stories are true for all Christians in their spiritual meaning. We can all see that Jonah's disobedience was against God's will for him, that nothing exists without the creative power of God, that human beings are separated from God by disobedience. Where understanding and interpretation can differ among Christians is over how far they may be understood literally and whether the events referred to actually took place or are to be understood rather as parables, allegories or symbolic stories.