PART 4 – EXPLORE THE VISUAL IMAGERY
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Chapter 17 - PAINTING PICTURES IN WORDS
I was working with my co-translator, translating the passage that we will be looking at in our next Joseph episode. We were making good progress, until we got to Pharaoh’s dream of the seven good ears of grain and the seven diseased ears. At that point we got stuck. We had already translated the first dream, of the seven fat and the seven thin cows, without any significant problems. I couldn’t understand why the second dream would be causing us grief. There were no difficult words, no awkward theological issues, so what was going on?!
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After a while I figured out that the problem resulted from my co-workers difficulty in imagining the scene in his mind. The picture of seven thin cows swallowing seven fat cows is rather bizarre, but not impossible to imagine. When I try to visualize Pharaoh’s dream I picture the thin cows sort of dislocating their bottom jaw, like a snake swallowing an animal that seems far too big to fit into its stomach. But it’s much more difficult to imagine the diseased ears of grain swallowing the good ears. How do we imagine them having a mouth, or a stomach, to be able to swallow them?
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So I first did some more research to try and pin down exactly what kind of grain was involved. The Hebrew here uses a very generic term that doesn’t specify what kind of grain, but the most common grain product in Egypt at that time would have been barley. Barley fits the description in the dream, especially as several ears grow from the same central stalk.
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One notable feature of barley is the ‘awns’ – hair-like extensions that emerge along the side of the ear. These hair-like extensions form a V-shape at the end of the ear, and could easily be imagined to form the outline of a mouth.
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Once we had jotted down some ideas with pencil and paper – enough for my co-translator to construct an image in his mind of what Pharaoh might have seen in his dream – he had no problem describing the dream in words.
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PAINTING WITH WORDS
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For oral learners, the visual image is essential for understanding and remembrance. The words serve as a palette to create the image in the mind, just as the artist’s palette serves as a source of colour and texture to create a work of art.
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Of course, this is true for certain genres, at least, in Western literature. Consider Wordsworth’s famous poem:
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
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Wordsworth is here clearly describing a real-life experience that created a powerful, emotional vision in his mind. His sister Dorothy wrote about the same experience in her journal entry for 15 April 1802. Later he wrote his poem painting that image in words, in a way that would convey to his audience the same visual imagery and emotional impact that he himself had experienced. The poem was originally composed in 1804, and went through several revisions, additions, and changes of vocabulary before it was published in its final form in Collected Poems, in 1815. Over that time period Wordsworth’s creative genius was adjusting and improving his use of his linguistic palette until the final work reflected the visual image to his satisfaction.
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In the final verse of the poem, Wordsworth reflects on the way that the original experience and visual memory “flash upon the inward eye” and bring back the same emotion of pleasure and delight:
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For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.
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LEARNING TO ‘BE THERE’ WITHIN THE STORIES OF THE BIBLE
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The stories that we read in the Bible are, of course, not our own personal experience – in fact, the historical setting and cultural background may make it very difficult for us to imagine ourselves being there, within the story.
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But it’s not impossible. Wordsworth’s poem, for example, enables us to see the vision of the daffodils fluttering and dancing in the breeze, as if we had been there with him, under the trees beside the lake. This is the very reason why the poem has such an emotional impact on those who read and learn to love Wordsworth’s poetry. But what if we have never seen daffodils for ourselves, or have never been to the Lake District and find it difficult to imagine the scenery?
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Well, after our son had been to see the first film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, we asked him what he thought of it, and were surprised to find that he didn’t like it much. “Why?” we asked. He replied, “The visual imagery in the film didn’t match the images I had already built in my own mind from reading the book.” So he had already imagined himself there in the story, and formed his own impressions of the scenery of Middle Earth and its inhabitants. He didn’t need the film to tell him how he was supposed to have imagined things!
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I hope to convince you that, if we can do the same with the stories of the Bible, then this will tremendously help our own understanding, and increase the impact that the stories will have on our emotional response.
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Questions for consideration or discussion
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Think back to events or situations in your own life that have left vivid memories – preferably happy ones that bring back good, pleasurable memories rather than sad ones.
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If you are studying in a group situation, describe the event, and the visual images or other sensual impressions (smells, sounds, tastes) that go along with it. If, for example, you are remembering a special meal you shared with a loved one, you may have a vivid memory of the place, the food you ate, the music that was playing. A certain piece of music, or the smell of a special perfume, can often trigger memories of a special event, or a special person in your life.
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Do certain stories in the Bible trigger personal impressions or memories in a similar way? (I will always remember being in a church where the minister was talking to the children about the parable of the lost sheep. One young lad, obviously the son of a local shepherd, kept interjecting, “My Daddy’s got a sheep like that!”)
