Abstract

Hosea’s reception history shows the existence of two distinct interpretative traditions in relation to the metaphor “God is a husband” employed in the first three chapters of the book. Many commentators, reading with the grain, focus on the unfaithfulness of Israel, the justice of her punishment and the love of God. More recently, feminist scholars have highlighted the problematic nature of this metaphor since it glorifies maleness and normalises gender–based violence against women. At first glance, these two approaches seem contradictory and mutually exclusive. However, Ricoeur’s discussion of the “conflict of interpretations” provides a fruitful way forward in dealing with this contradiction. Rather than being incompatible with one another, feminist and androcentric interpretations of Hosea are a particular example of the dialectical tension and integration of the hermeneutics of trust and the hermeneutics of suspicion. Both play a vital role in the reading process. One unmasks the idols produced by the false consciousness of the ego, the other opens oneself to hearing the voice of the Sacred, which comes into the text from beyond the realms of language.

Highlights

  • The complex structure, memorable imagery, and ambiguous plot of the opening chapters of the book of Hosea have long fascinated and puzzled its readers

  • The symbol of the divine husband feeds off archaic instincts, notably the death instinct, which forms the basis of our “primordial hostility” towards other human beings (Ricoeur 2007, pp. 127–29)

  • In Ricoeur’s framework, this divine symbol is an idol, a disguised manifestation of repressed desire emanating from the depths of human “archaeology.” Because it represents the “return of the repressed” it appears in the consciousness in a concealed form

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Summary

Introduction

The complex structure, memorable imagery, and ambiguous plot of the opening chapters of the book of Hosea have long fascinated and puzzled its readers. Seen as capturing the wonders of divine love standing against the depths of human depravity, the picture of an angry but forgiving divine husband poses questions about gender–based violence and domestic abuse This new way of looking at the text is increasingly difficult to reconcile with traditional readings, and require the commentator to make a choice. The marriage metaphor turns out to be a suitable way of justifying God’s dealings with Israel for an audience to whom the actions and feelings of the wronged husband seem understandable and perfectly natural. The introduction of a female point of view changes the way the male character in the story is perceived He is no longer the holy and righteous victim of his wife’s infidelities but a “deeply ambivalent man, one who can be as cruel and pitiless towards his wife as he can be gentle and giving” By leaving the “corrected” marriage metaphor in the text, the redactors of Hosea suggest that it still has a place in the reader’s quest to understand the nature of God

The Hermeneutics of Suspicion and Trust
Conclusions
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