The present study offers a comprehensive analysis of leonine imagery in the Hebrew Bible. After an introduction that discusses God-language and the theological significance of metaphor (Chapter 1), the biblical lion imagery is typed according to naturalistic or metaphorical use, along with various subdivisions (Chapter 2). When metaphorically employed, biblical lion imagery is found with four referents: the self/righteous, the enemy/wicked, the monarch/mighty one, and the deity. An analysis of the lion in the archaeological record of ancient Israel/Palestine from 1500-332 BCE is then offered (Chapter 3). In addition to finds from excavated sites, unprovenanced seals and related onomastica are discussed. The finds show: a) a common association of the lion with the monarch/mighty one and various deities; b) the presence of lion artifacts in cultic and official contexts; and c) evidence of artistic connections to other regions. Given the latter point, the study proceeds to investigate the use of the lion in the art and literature of the ancient Near East (Chapter 4). This vast corpus is organized according to rubric and function, categorizing the attested imagery as to whether it utilizes the lion as a negative image for the enemy or wicked; as a positive image for the monarch/mighty one or victor; or as an image for the gods and/or goddesses. The widespread use of the lion as a guardian of portals and gateways is also considered. In all three contexts (Hebrew Bible, archaeology of ancient Israel/Palestine, and ancient Near East), it is argued that the function of lion imagery as well as its main tenor in metaphorical presentations seem primarily dependent on the power and threat that this predatory animal represents.	
Chapter 5 brings the comparative data of Chapter 4 into dialogue with the materials presented in Chapters 2-3 in order to cast further light on the different uses of the lion in the Hebrew Bible. Similarities and differences are noted and assessed. It is argued that: 1) the lion as trope of threat and power is relatively stable across the different data sets; 2) the use of the lion with monarch/mighty one is quite different (and muted) in the biblical text when compared to the comparative and archaeological materials; 3) the use of the lion with Yahweh is similar in many ways to the comparative and archaeological contexts; and 4) the use of the lion as an image for the enemy is also similar but somewhat more pronounced in the Hebrew Bible (esp. in the Psalms). Possible explanations for #2 are offered, as is an investigation of Yahweh’s leonine profile. That profile could stem from the storm-god composite Baal-Seth or, more probably, from the tradition of violent leonine goddesses (esp. Sekhmet and/or Ishtar). A third possible source for the imagery is the use of militant lion metaphors in ancient Near Eastern royal inscriptions if, in fact, Israel’s use is not sui generis.	
Chapter 6 concludes the study by returning to the theological and metaphorical significance of zoomorphic imagery. Three appendices (lion terminology, semantic domain of lion imagery, biblical lion passages) and 483 images round out the volume.

https://www.zora.uzh.ch/id/eprint/150391/1/Strawn_2005_What_Is_Stronger_than_a_Lion.pdf

What Is Stronger than a Lion?: Leonine Image and Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East

The early Jewish transmission of Psalm 16: from psalm to messianic proof text in Luke-Acts

it defines and limits the meaning of selem. Second, the two words are interchangeable; no distinction is discoverable between them. Third, both words are included in Genesis 1:26. However, only selem is used in Genesis 1:27, but the omission of d§mu®t does not diminish the meaning. Preuss, noting the occurrence and semantic field of the verb and noun forms for t...wm√;d defines it as a “copy,” “reproduction” or “image” (Preuss 1997:3.259). The eighth century prophet Isaiah warns the nation of Israel not to pursue lRs‹RÚpAh “the idol” (Is 40:19), since wáøl ...wk√rAo¶A;tt...wäm√;d_hAm...w l¡Ea N...wâyV;mådV;t yTMIm_lRa◊w “to whom will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare with Him?” (Is 40:18). Idols, which are creations of human hands, lack the “likeness” of the divine creator. Isaiah’s comparison is not applicable to the human, who is created in the “image...likeness” of God. The context of Isaiah 40 expresses comfort for God’s people (40:1), whose Lord has measured the waters in the hollow of His hand (40:12), sits enthroned above the circle of the earth (Is 40:22), and is the Everlasting God, Creator of the ends of the earth who does not grow weary or tired (40:28b). Idols do not compare. Feinberg (1972:236) notes the difference between sΩelem, which refers to human essence, and d§mu®t as the aspect of the person that changes. Both concepts evolve from the Greek and Latin father’s distinction between sΩelem, as the physical condition of the human, and d§mu®t which refers to the ethical expression of the divine image emanating from God. Although distinctions between image and likeness are noted, Kidner (2008:55) deduces that the words reinforce one another in Genesis 1:26, since the conjunction is absent

The debilitating duo : shame and guilt in Psalm 32

THE USE OF NAKEDNESS IMAGERY AS THEOLOGICAL LANGUAGE IN THE OLD TESTAMENT Ryan Cole Hanley, Ph.D. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2019 Chair: Dr. T. J. Betts This dissertation argues that nakedness language in the OT powerfully communicates theological information to the reader because of its inherent association with shame at the level of basic human experience. This dissertation surveys the texts using nakedness imagery in the OT, explaining its function and meaning, and addressing any pertinent issues. Chapter 1 introduces the thesis and methodology of the project and surveys the history of interpretation. These interpretations corroborate the claims of the thesis. Chapter 2 specifies the terms used for nakedness in the OT, concluding that nakedness refers fundamentally to the exposure of the sexual organs. This chapter surveys the primary verbs and their derivatives as well as nouns used euphemistically to describe the sexual organs. Chapter 3 surveys the ANE context, examining the functional, aesthetic, penal, and military uses of nudity, and it demonstrates that these nations considered public nudity taboo. Chapter 4 examines the use of nakedness imagery in the Pentateuch. Genesis uses nakedness imagery to depict the original idyllic state of creation, the disorder after humans sinned, and YHWH’s grace to repentant people. Nakedness in the legal texts expresses humans’ need for holiness before God and one another. Deuteronomy announces YHWH’s deprivation of his apostate people. Chapter 5 studies the use of nakedness imagery in the Prophets. YHWH uses nakedness to undergird his rejection of Saul and affirmation of David. Samuel and Isaiah corroborate the ANE practice of stripping as humiliation. YHWH threatens judgment against his apostate people in Hosea and Ezekiel. Several texts use nakedness imagery to represent the endangered and poor. Chapter 6 studies the use of nakedness imagery in the Writings, showing again the plight of the poor or endangered. Nakedness imagery in Job and Ecclesiastes conveys the concept of contingency, and in Proverbs and Song of Songs, recaptures the unity and intimacy in marriage that was lost in Eden. This dissertation concludes that nakedness imagery addresses numerous facets of theology in the OT, primarily because nakedness emphasizes the vulnerability of humans. This vulnerability exposes the darker side of human nature, such as fear and shame, but it also exposes the ideal, such as unity and trust.

The Use of Nakedness Imagery as Theological Language in the Old Testament

The application of form criticism to the study of the NT Gospels in the twentieth century led to parable scholarship generally giving little interpretive weight to the parables’ immediate narrative contexts and Gospel framing. Despite recent critique of form criticism, this lack of attention to the NT Gospels' literary arrangement of the parables has yet to be adequately rectified, leaving a gap in parable scholarship that this thesis seeks to partially fill. What follows is an exercise in literary criticism, as informed by socio-historical research, that reads the parables in interpretive dialogue with the material placed in immediate literary proximity to them within the NT Gospels. In dialogue with Irenaeus and several modern parable scholars, I provide a possible theoretical rationale for the importance of the Gospel framing of the parables of Jesus. I observe that scholarship reading the parables in isolation from their Gospel frames tends of interpretive necessity to adapt the parables to general hypotheses. These hypotheses tend to dominate in the interpretive process, so that the parables typically function primarily to illustrate, reinforce or commend what is already known from elsewhere in the Gospels (and the NT) or from historical inquiry concerning Jesus. My proposal is that the NT Gospels’ arrangement of the parables, situational and contextual in nature, anticipates an alternative approach to reading the parables, involving an interpretive dialogue between parable and frame that is generative of meaning, so that the parables may make their own unique contribution to their Gospels. I propose a methodology for reading the NT parables that brings individual parables, the narrative circumstances of their telling, and the direct speech elements that accompany them, into an interpretive relationship. This methodology recognises an interpretive dependency (at a literary level) between the parables and their Gospel frames, that creates the conditions for a genuine and collaborative dialogue between them, in which both may mutually inform, and in doing so provide an audience with new ways of seeing the situation at hand. In this way the (situational) meaning and significance of a parable is established in a dialogical manner, and without the parable being dominated by a hypothesis. This interpretive process is shown to be generative of meaning, with associated interpretive outcomes going beyond what is explicit in either parable or frame, even while being thoroughly informed and shaped by them. Applying this methodology to six Synoptic parables results in an emphasis on contextual concerns given insufficient attention in other scholarship, so that new insights emerge concerning the meaning and function of these parables in the ministry of the Synoptic Jesus. I argue that the resulting interpretive outcomes are more varied and specific than when the parables are adapted to a general hypothesis. Further, I show how this contextual approach to interpretation then allows a parable (as first interpreted contextually) to make its own distinct contribution to developing and enriching a Gospel’s wider narrative and iii theology (even while being given further depth and perspective through reference to that narrative and theology). Included within my methodology is a model designed to illuminate the communicative dynamics that give the parables their persuasive power in relation to their Gospel narrative audiences and circumstances. This model is proposed as a new contribution to parable scholarship, and when applied to the six Synoptic parables brings new insights concerning each parable’s rhetorical function and the rhetorical strategies by which they each achieve their didactic and/or prophetic aims. In general I find that these parables are skilful rhetorical pieces, designed to subvert the way an audience understands the circumstances to which each parable speaks, providing a new perspective on those circumstances that has the potential to liberate and empower an audience to participate (or further participate) in the kingdom of God in new ways. I also argue that the detailed and parable-specific contextual data that the Synoptics provide for these parables allows us to define their individual rhetorical strategies with greater specificity than is otherwise possible. A preliminary assessment of whether my methodology may be applied to all the main Synoptic parables suggests that the NT Gospels’ literary arrangement of the parables of Jesus consistently anticipates a contextual reading. In particular, I argue that the parables are thoroughly integrated into their immediate literary contexts as components of carefully structured literary units, and that sufficient parable-specific data is provided to allow us to assess each parable's significance for the narrative circumstances associated with its telling. I discuss possible objections to a contextual reading of the parables of Jesus. I argue that the parables’ (polyvalent) nature must be not be confused with their actual use and reception in particular circumstances (which may be univalent). I also argue that my approach need not confine the parables’ significance to history; rather the parables may alter the perceptions of a contemporary audience in the same way as I have suggested they altered the perceptions of the parables' Gospel narrative audiences, where the circumstances of the two audiences are similar or analogous. Further, I observe that recent Gospel origins scholarship, together with literary arguments in this thesis, suggest it may be important to re-evaluate the conclusions of Form and Redaction Criticism concerning the historicity of the Gospel arrangement of the parables. Finally I propose that the NT Gospels' literary arrangement of the parables of Jesus, far from being ahistorical, may have been carefully designed to replicate for the reader the opportunity the parables provided for the first disciples of the historical Jesus to learn the discipline of active, inquiring and responsive listening (to Jesus) which is necessary to receive the mystery of the kingdom of God.

To Put a New Face on the Matter: The Parables of Jesus in their Gospel Contexts

Dictionary of Biblical imagery

This compendium is a Christian response to the controversies and some of the texts with which undergraduates and postgraduates in English studies are grappling

The discerning reader : Christian perspectives on literature and theory

Even people who know little about the Puritans bandy the phrase “Puritan work ethic” with confidence. When we explore what they mean by that phrase, it becomes apparent how little specific content the phrase holds for most people today. For many the phrase Puritan ethic is simply a catchall label for what they dislike about the Puritans.

/pdf/worldly-saints-the-puritans-as-they-really-were-2pfd1v4qbv.pdf

Worldly Saints: The Puritans As They Really Were

Since the rise of aesthetics in the eighteenth century, ethics or moral philosophy has had an uneasy relationship with literature. The old Horatian formula, restated by Sidney and others, that poetry instructs through pleasing disappeared from the critical literature when beauty was defined in formal terms, apart from the good and the true. "Art for art's sake" may constitute one grand theme of post-Kantian criticism, but ethical issues did not disappear entirely they have often been articulated in terms of the social responsibilities of the artist or of art.

Contemporary Literary Theory: A Christian Appraisal

Redeeming the Time: A Christian Approach to Work and Leisure

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