Moore, Anne
Moving Beyond Symbol and Myth
Understanding the Kingship of God of the Hebrew Bible Through Metaphor
New York, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, Oxford, Wien, 2009. XIV, 332 pp.
Studies in Biblical Literature. Vol. 99
General Editor: Hemchand Gossai
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ISBN 978-0-8204-8661-1 hardback (Hardcover)
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Book synopsis
For hundreds of years, scholars have debated the meaning of Jesus’ central theological term, the ‘kingdom of God’. Most of the argument has
focused on its assumed eschatological connotations and Jesus’ adherence or deviation from these ideas. Within the North American context,
the debate is dominated by the work of Norman Perrin, whose classification of the kingdom of God as a myth-evoking symbol remains one of
the fundamental assumptions of scholarship. According to Perrin, Jesus’ understanding of the kingdom of God is founded upon the myth of God
acting as king on behalf of Israel as described in the Hebrew Bible.
Moving Beyond Symbol and Myth challenges Perrin’s classification, and advocates the reclassification of the kingdom of God as metaphor.
Drawing upon insights from the cognitive theory of metaphor, this study examines all the occurrences of the ‘God is king’ metaphor within the
literary context of the Hebrew Bible. Based on this review, it is proposed that the ‘God is king’ metaphor functions as a true metaphor with a
range of expressions and meanings. It is employed within a variety of texts and conveys images of God as the covenantal sovereign of Israel;
God as the eternal suzerain of the world, and God as the king of the disadvantaged. The interaction of the semantic fields of divinity and human
kingship evoke a range of metaphoric expressions that are utilized throughout the history of the Hebrew Bible in response to differing sociohistorical contexts and within a range of rhetorical strategies. It is this diversity inherent in the ‘God is king’ metaphor that is the foundation for
the diversified expressions of the kingdom of God associated with the historical Jesus and early Christianity.
About the author(s)/editor(s)
The Author: Anne Moore received her Ph.D. in New Testament from Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California. She is currently
the Senior Instructor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, and has published articles on the
Empty Tomb stories of the Gospels and the ‘God is King’ metaphor within common Judaism.
Reviews
«‘Moving Beyond Symbol and Myth’ is a stunning revision of Norman Perrin’s work on the ‘kingdom of God’. Guided by recent cognitive theory
that approaches metaphors as sentences, Anne Moore’s comprehensive analysis of texts that imply that ‘God is king’ challenges the dominant
view that all kingdom of God texts are eschatological. As a result of the careful assessment of the semantic fields in virtually all the pertinent
texts in ‘Tanakh’, Pseudepigrapha, and Apocrypha on the basis of their topic domain and vehicle field, this book sets a new standard for analysis
and interpretation of kingdom texts.» (Vernon K. Robbins, Professor of New Testament and Comparative Sacred Texts, Emory University)
«Anne Moore returns to the primary sources to analyze the concept of the ‘kingdom of God’ in the Hebrew Bible. She argues that Norman
Perrin’s explanation of the kingdom of God in the teaching of Jesus is flawed, and hence inadequate to explain the data in the Hebrew Bible.
Drawing on developments in the discussion of metaphor in literary criticism since 1960, Moore argues that ‘kingdom of God’ is a cognitive
metaphor and a means to communicate some understanding about the nature of God and reality rather than being an imprecise trope
referencing a myth-evoking symbol. ‘Moving Beyond Symbol and Myth’ is a well-written, lucid, and important study challenging the past thirty
years of New Testament scholarship.» (Charles W. Hedrick, Emeritus Distinguished Professor, Missouri State University)
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