Metaphor Competition in the Book of Job by Lance R. Howley

Abstract

Reviewed by: Metaphor Competition in the Book of Job by Lance R. Howley David A. Bosworth lance r. howley, Metaphor Competition in the Book of Job (JAJSup 26; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018). Pp. 256. $113. Scholars have long disagreed about whether the speakers in Job respond to one another or merely advance the speakers’ positions without interacting with prior speeches. Howley brings a clear method and tight focus to this question that advances scholarship and lays foundations that others may build on. He quotes Carol A. Newsom’s remark that the poetic dialogue in Job is “a struggle over metaphors” (Newsom, The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003] 119). The speakers in Job make extensive use of metaphor, and H. examines whether their use of metaphor responds to prior metaphors. Metaphor competition occurs when a speaker reinterprets the metaphorical mapping introduced by a prior speaker, and this remapping emerges as a clear example of coherence across speeches. H.’s results are mixed but provide a clearer picture of coherence in Job than scholarly discussion has so far produced. In chap. 1, H. presents the scholarly debate about coherence in the Book of Job and lays out a path forward. He draws on cognitive linguistics to clarify the notion of coherence, which exists in the mind of a reader who engages the text. A dialogue may cohere with or [End Page 115] without progressing as long as the participants speak about the same concepts, which need not involve verbal repetition. At the end of chap. 1, H. outlines his method. He systematically analyzes two metaphors in the corpus of Job: speech as a target domain (metaphors about the topic of speech) and animals as a source domain (metaphors involving animals on any topic). Interlocutors in the book frequently critique one another’s speech and often use animal imagery. Furthermore, animals appear in God’s speech at the end, which allows H. to examine the divine speech as a response to the human dialogue. In chap. 2, H. describes conceptual metaphor theory using as a consistent example Job 13:12, “Your reminders are proverbs of ashes.” Metaphors may appear in a variety of syntactical forms (here a construct chain). Conceptual metaphor theory involves investigation of the ideas and views surrounding the terms. In the OT, the term “ashes” ( ) elicits at least four domains: mourning, destruction, humility, and weakness. Almost all OT references to ashes elicit metaphorical mappings that have little to do with literal meanings, making research on the conceptual signification necessary. The mapping between the concepts proverbs and ashes may work in various ways, and the context helps narrow the possibilities. In the verse, Job represents the wisdom of his friends as ephemeral rather than lasting reminders. The next line (“your defenses are defenses of clay”) activates weakness and worthlessness as qualities shared by ashes and clay. H. concludes with three criteria for identifying perceptually coherent metaphors that would indicate interactions between speakers. First, unconventional metaphors are more perceptible to audiences. Second, more specific metaphors are more perceptible than generic metaphors. Generic metaphors like “logical structures are physical structures” appear in many speeches, but the cognitive level of these metaphors is so generic that they pass unnoticed. Third, coherence is more difficult to perceive as the textual distance between metaphors is greater. In chap. 3, H. analyzes coherence in the speech metaphors. He begins with discussion of speech in Job and evaluations of speech (Job evaluates his own and his friends’ speech, and the friends evaluate their own speech). He analyzes metaphors in three categories: speech as destructive, strengthening, and windy words. H. does not see coherence across speeches except in the last category, where windy words cohere throughout the dialogue as a critique of Job’s speech that implicitly places him with the wicked fools. Job initiates the metaphor, asking if his friends think his words are wind (Job 6:26), and they pick up the image and develop it affirmatively (8:2; 15:2–3, 30), and Job finally rejects this characterization of his speech (16:3). In chap. 4, H. examines the several metaphors using animals as a source domain...