Sexual and Marital Metaphors in Hosea, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel

Download or read book Sexual and Marital Metaphors in Hosea, Jeremiah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel written by Sharon Moughtin-Mumby and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2008-06-05 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sharon Moughtin-Mumby considers the often unrecognised impact of different approaches to metaphor on readings of the prophtic sexual and marital metaphorical language. She outlines a practical and consciously simplified approach to metaphor, placing strong emphasis on the influence of literary context on metaphorical meaning. Drawing on this approach, she read Hosea 4-14, Jeremiah 2:1-4:4, Isaiah, Ezekiel 16 and 23, and Hosea 1-3 with fresh eyes. Her lucid new readings reveal the way in which scholarship has repeatedly stifled the prophetic metaphorical language by reading it within the 'default contexts' of 'the marriage metaphor' and 'cultic prostitution', which for so many years have been simply assumed. Readers are encouraged instead to read these diverse metaphors and similes within their distinctive literary contexts in which they have the potential to rise vividly to life, provoking the question: how are we to respond to these disquieting, powerful texts in the midst of the Hebrew Bible?