Challenging Prophetic Metaphor: Theology and Ideology in the Prophets. By JULIA O'BRIEN.

Abstract

This is a courageously honest book. Julia O'Brien tackles a number of the most familiar metaphors used by the Old Testament prophets, mainly to depict their understanding of God and of the people's relationship to their God, but also, in two instances, of their relationship with surrounding nations. After a brief survey of the history of interpretation of the prophetic books, and a more detailed consideration of feminist criticism of them, the metaphors dealt with are ‘God as (Abusing) Husband’, with special attention to Hosea 1 and 2; ‘God as (Authoritarian) Father’, particularly (but not exclusively) as found in Malachi; ‘God as (Angry) Warrior’, with special focus on Nahum; ‘Jerusalem as (Defenseless) Daughter’, with Micah 4 and 5 as main example, and ‘Edom as (Selfish) Brother’, especially as highlighted in Obadiah. O'Brien finds particularly difficult the sexual and social implications of the patriarchal structure of the family underlying the ideological assumptions of the biblical writers, with both women and children seen as the property of the dominating male who is perfectly justified in whatever treatment of them he sees fit. But she also claims that these metaphors intersect ‘with not only gender but also race, class, and other forms of privilege’ (p. 49). Certainly, for me, the Old Testament has raised, above all, problems to do with the political, racial, and territorial claims of the writers, with all the menacing consequences of these claims in our own times. O'Brien expresses her dilemma (and that of many others) when she asks, ‘How can a person like the Bible and at the same time admit that at times it can be downright horrible?’ (p. 48).