Queer Theory and the Prophetic Marriage Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible

Stuart Macwilliam

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781134945726
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia antica

The Hebrew Bible offers a metaphor of marriage that portrays men and women as complementary, each with their distinct and 'natural' roles. Queer Theory and the Prophetic Marriage Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible draws on contemporary scholarship to critique this hetero-normativity. The book examines the methodological issues involved in the application of queer theory to biblical texts and draws on the concept of gender performativity - the construction of gender through action and behaviour - to argue for the potential of queer theory in political readings of the Bible. The central role of metaphor in reinforcing gender performativity is examined in relation to the books of Jeremiah, Hosea and Ezekiel. The book offers a radical reassessment of the relationship between biblical language and gender identity.

Section II
Queer and Metaphor

Chapter 3
A Queer Theory of Metaphor

3.1 Introduction

A queer theorist who sets out to examine the marriage metaphor is fortunate in having the run of a substantial literature on the theory of metaphor.¹ Since the history of that literature has been more than adequately covered by, amongst others, J. M. Soskice (1985: 1–53), Galambush (1992: 4–10) and Stienstra (1993, ch. 1), I propose not to repeat their work, but to follow their examples in isolating some elements of metaphorical theory that seem most relevant to my own project. Accordingly I shall not dwell on the one major preoccupation of many recent theorists: working in a variety of disciplines – literary criticism, philosophy, linguistics and psychology, for instance – they have explored issues of cognitive processes and content-status of metaphors, and not only those that that may be classed as literary figures of speech, but also the metaphorical element of scientific and everyday language. This debate has a resonance with theology; Sallie McFague (1983; building on Paul Ricoeur’s work) and Soskice (1985) have offered important discussions on the significance of metaphorical language about God. But what I want to ask of metaphorical theory is what help it can give in exploring how the marriage metaphor relates to the queer view of the gender process.

3.2 Definitions

To begin the discussion, I should clarify my own understanding of metaphor. I am happy to adopt Soskice’s definition:

[M]etaphor is that figure of speech whereby we speak about one thing in terms which are seen to be suggestive of another. (Soskice 1985: 15)

Soskice’s reason for using the phrase “figure of speech” was that she wished to emphasize the linguistic element of metaphor – as opposed to “process or a mental act” (Soskice 1985: 16); my reason for adopting it is that it suggests a deliberate literary trope, in contrast to the pervasive content of everyday speech. This fits in well with the marriage metaphor.² A disadvantage of using it is that it may also be suggestive of the small-scale examples of metaphor that theorists, understandably enough, are prone to offer. This would not matter except that Soskice in particular seems to exclude the longer metaphor from her discussion. In distinguishing between allegory and satire, on the one hand, and metaphor, on the other, she argues that allegory and satire differ from metaphor partly in scope “because in many cases … [they] extend beyond use in the sentence or discrete utterance; their locus being more properly the text, they are not truly tropic” (Soskice 1985: 55). Whether or not the examples of the marriage metaphor I am discussing extend beyond the “discrete utterance”, I certainly do consider them metaphorical and not allegorical (since they do not contain the detached hidden code or key of allegory).

Before I leave the question of definition, I should like to add a brief aside which emerges from the distinction made between literary metaphor and everyday speech. My synchronic treatment of the marriage metaphor will preclude aetiological considerations, but work done in that area is worth a mention.³ Galambush reviews the literature on the mythological origins of the metaphor.⁴ She applies Lakoff and Johnson’s idea of the conceptual metaphor⁵ to Fitzgerald’s argument for the ancient Near Eastern understanding of capital cities as “goddesses who were married to the patron god of the city” (1972: 405). This understanding, Galambush argues, “is deeply embedded in culture so as to be virtually invisible” (1992: 20). The prophets, then, according to this argument,⁶ revivified what had become quiescent tradition akin to the “conventional” metaphors discussed by Lakoff and Johnson. Though only tangential to my own concerns, this debate does raise fascinating speculation about the reception of the marriage metaphor in its own time. Was the image of a married Yhwh as startling⁷ to its contemporary addressees as it is to some modern readers, if it did indeed recall a long-established tradition? Or is it to be inferred that the effect was created by the terms in which the image was expressed? The marriage metaphor must have created some effect, since it proved a trope of considerable “staying power” (to use McFague’s phrase). Moreover it is equally interesting to speculate on the part played by an ancient mythological tradition upon Christianity’s imaging of Christ’s relationship with his worshippers. There is another, more fundamental, metaphorical element of the Hebrew Biblical and subsequent traditions without which the marriage metaphor was inconceivable. That is the practice of ascribing masculine gender to Yhwh. This element will not be in itself a prime focus in this book, but I acknowledge its pervasive influence; it is explored in depth by, for example, Eilberg-Schwartz (1994). I must acknowledge too its power: it is immensely difficult in Western Christian traditions, at least, to think of Yhwh as it, or even It; and despite decades of feminist critique the imaging of Yhwh/God as She has not won widespread acceptance. The fundamental metaphorical gendering of Yhwh is a triumph of gender performativity, and the apparent reluctance to abandon it is a tribute to its effective use of the naturalization process.

3.3 Metaphorical Attributes: Non-Substitution and Interaction

But, to return to the firmer ground of metaphorical theory, I do not wish to linger among the many discussions, except to mention that I take from Richards’ classic account (1936) the familiar terminology of vehicle and tenor, so that in the example “man is a wolf”, “man” is the tenor and “wolf” the vehicle. I also take it as axiomatic that the metaphorical process involves more than a simple comparison between vehicle and tenor, but that, in Richards’ words, “the co-presence of the vehicle and tenor results in a meaning (to be clearly distinguished from the tenor) which is not attainable without their interaction” (Richards 1936: 100). The significance of this sentence is twofold: first, it suggests what other writers call non-substitution or irreducibility; as McFague expresses it: “A metaphor is not an ornament or illustration, but says what cannot be said any other way” (1983: 50).

Second, the word “interaction” anticipates what Black worked out at greater length (1962: 38–47). The most significant part of his argument for the treatment of the marriage metaphor by feminist scholars lies in a single sentence: “If to call a man a wolf is to put him in a special light, we must not forget that the metaphor makes the wolf seem more human than he otherwise would” (1962: 44).

Black fails to develop his remark. Perhaps it is too suggestive of affect rather than of cognition for it to interest him. Perhaps, too, it implies the triumph of the text over authorial control, something with which he would not have much sympathy. But the idea that the metaphorical process produces a genuinely mutual interaction between vehicle and tenor is consonant with the way in which many feminist critics have read the marriage metaphor. For the feminist critic, especially one who argues from the standpoint of reception-theory, there is nothing startling in the argument that to talk of Yhwh’s relationship with Judah/Israel in terms of a patriarchal view of marriage divinizes that view; it is a feminist insight at least as old as the Dalyesque man/God dictum.⁸ This attitude towards metaphorical interaction is fully articulated by McFague (though she does not use the quotation from Black mentioned above), who talks of “the interactive character of models, that is, the way in which the model and the modelled mutually influence one another” (McFague 1983: 147).⁹ She expands this theme and includes the comment: “At the heart of patriarchalism as root-metaphor is a subject-object split in which man [viz. qua male] is envisioned over against God and vice versa” (McFague 1983: 148).

While I endorse this understanding of the metaphorical process when applied to the marriage metaphor, there remains a need to guard against a reductionist accusation of mere subjectivism. Sherwood is well aware of the danger:

Because truth is conventionally associated with the literal, metaphor is taken to be a dilute or distorted form of truth, and the force of words and phrases can be made less innocuous by dismissing them as “only a metaphor”. (Sherwood 1996: 62)

Sherwood’s remark is in fact directed towards those male critics who refuse to accept the implications of the Hosean description of Gomer as

Her w...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Tables and Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Section I Methodological Foundations
• Section II Queer and Metaphor
• Section III Queer and Camp
• Schedule of Antischemas
• Bibliography
• Index of Biblical References
• Index of Modern Authors
• Subject Index