Metaphor Research and the Hebrew Bible

Abstract

This article provides an overview of metaphor theories and research on their own terms, as well as their use in Hebrew Bible (HB) studies. Though metaphor studies in the HB have become increasingly popular, they often draw upon a limited or dated subset of metaphor scholarship. The first half of this article surveys a wide variety of metaphor scholarship from the humanities (philosophical, poetic, rhetorical) and the sciences (e.g., conceptual metaphor theory), beginning with Aristotle but focusing on more recent developments. The second half overviews studies of metaphor in the HB since 1980, surveying works focused on theory and method; works focused on specific biblical books or metaphor domains; and finally noting current trends and suggesting areas for future research.

Similes of Woman and Man in the Book of Song of Songs

“…Biblical metaphors are commonly analyzed within exegetical frameworks, especially the historical or literary approach (Jindo, 2018). Lancaster (2021) stressed that although the book of Song of Songs is abundant with metaphors, it has not been the target of biblical metaphor studies. Similarly, Gault (2019) pinpointed that despite its particularity in the Bible, the metaphors in the Song of Songs have not been researched using the comparative approach.…”