SBL Press Hosea's God: A Metaphorical Theology (Ancient Israel and Its Literature, 48)

In Hosea's God: A Metaphorical Theology, Mason Lancaster demonstrates that recent advances in metaphor theory help untangle the divergent portrayals of God in the book of Hosea. Lancaster analyzes fifteen metaphor clusters in Hosea 4-14 individually, then discerns patterns and reversals between the clusters. Finally, respecting the ancient value for emphasizing individual aspects of a depiction over a homogenized picture of the whole, the book identifies five characteristics of God prominent among the metaphors of Hosea. Based on this analysis, Lancaster asserts that Hosea's metaphorical depiction of Yahweh ultimately derives from the primacy of Yahweh's fidelity to Israel.