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14 - Gendered Imagery in Isaiah

from Part III - Isaiah as Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2024

By
Hanne Løland Levinson
Edited by
Christopher B. Hays
Christopher B. Hays
Affiliation:
Fuller Theological Seminary, California
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Summary

Hanne Løland Levinson’s “Gendered Imagery in Isaiah” looks at one of the most significant and striking features of Isaiah: its repeated use of feminine imagery for God. She begins with an advanced yet accessible discussion of how metaphors work, then goes on to analyze how the use of imagery comparing God to a pregnant woman, a midwife, and a breastfeeding mother—alongside more widespread masculine imagery—combine to challenge and transform the ways in which readers perceive God. In conclusion, she points out the importance of female god-language in a world in which gender continues to be a basis for inequality and exclusion.

Keywords

Godgendermetaphorgod-languageSecond Isaiahfemale/feminine images for God
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to the Book of Isaiah , pp. 225 - 242
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Further Reading

Baumann, Gerlinde. Love and Violence: Marriage as Metaphor for the Relationship between Yhwh and Israel in the Prophetic Books. Translated by Linda M. Maloney. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Carvalho, Corrine L. “Whose Gendered Language of God?” CurTM 43 (2016): 12–16.Google Scholar
Chapman, Cynthia R. The Gendered Language of Warfare in the Israelite-Assyrian Encounter, HSM 62. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Claassens, L. Juliana M. “Rupturing God-Language: The Metaphor of God as Midwife in Psalm 22.” Pages 166–75 in Engaging the Bible in a Gendered World: An Introduction to Feminist Biblical Interpretation in Honor of Katherine Doob Sakenfeld. Edited by Day, Linda and Pressler, Carolyn. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2006.Google Scholar
Daly, Mary. Beyond God the Father: Toward a Philosophy of Women’s Liberation. Boston, MA: Beacon, 1973.Google Scholar
Darr, Kathryn Pfisterer. Isaiah’s Vision and the Family of God. Literary Currents in Biblical Interpretation. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1994.Google Scholar
DesCamp, Mary Therese, and Sweetser, Eve E.. “Metaphors for God: Why and How Do Our Choices Matter for Humans? The Application of Contemporary Cognitive Linguistics Research to the Debate on God and Metaphor.” Pastoral Psychology 53 (2005): 207–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dille, Sarah J. Mixing Metaphors: God as Mother and Father in Deutero-Isaiah. JSOTSup 398. London: T&T Clark, 2004.Google Scholar
Fauconnier, Gilles, and Turner, Mark. The Way we Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities. New York: Basic Books, 2002.Google Scholar
Fogelin, Robert J. Figuratively Speaking. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Gillman, Neil. Believing and Its Tensions: A Personal Conversation about God, Torah, Suffering and Death in Jewish Thought. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Light Publishing, 2013.Google Scholar
Johnson, Elizabeth A. She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. New York: Crossroad, 1993.Google Scholar
Kamionkowski, Tamar S. Gender Reversal and Cosmic Chaos: A Study on the Book of Ezekiel. JSOTSup 368. London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George, and Johnson, Mark. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Levinson, Hanne Løland. “The Never-Ending Search for God’s Feminine Side: Feminine Aspects in the God-Image of the Prophets.” Pages 293–306 in Prophecy. Edited by Juliana, L., Claassens, M., with the assistance of Funlola O. Olojede. The Bible and Women 1.2. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2021.Google Scholar
Løland, Hanne, Silent or Salient Gender? The Interpretation of Gendered God-Language in the Hebrew Bible, Exemplified in Isaiah 42, 46, and 49. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 2/32. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008.Google Scholar
Maier, Christl M. Daughter Zion, Mother Zion: Gender, Space, and the Sacred in Ancient Israel. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Meyers, Carol. Rediscovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.Google Scholar
Soskice, Janet Martin. Metaphor and Religious Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.Google Scholar

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