METAPHOR’S FORGOTTEN BROTHER: A SURVEY OF METONYMY IN BIBLICAL HEBREW POETRY

Metaphor has long been a subject of interest for biblical scholarship; however metonymy, which is closely related to metaphor, has received far less attention. Metaphor and metonymy are distinct in their conceptual processes, metaphor juxtaposes two conceptually distinct domains and metonymy creates relationships within one conceptual domain, but they share many similarities and often function in concert in poetry. Although metaphor has received the lion’s share of our attention, further study of metonymy will enrich our knowledge of metaphor and the poetics behind biblical poetry (i.e., the mechanisms and principles that govern poetry). This article introduces the two main forms of metonymy: taxonomic and partonomic. Taxonomic metonymy is based upon relationships between a more comprehensive and less comprehensive category (e.g., SPECIFIC FOR GENERAL), and partonomic metonymy is based upon contiguous relationships (e.g., PART FOR WHOLE). It surveys the various poetic functions of partonomic metonymy (semantic compaction, oblique reference, and semantic multivalency), and concludes by illustrating how accounting for metonymy can aid in solving the interpretive difficulties in the poetic passage of Jr 5:15-16.

Freeing Biblical Poetry to Sing

This article claims that the cognitive effects of music on the brain reinforce the Biblical exhortation to “Sing to the Lord a new song” (Psalm 96:1, Colossians 3:16). Then it explores how this is borne out in poetic translations of Biblical Hebrew poetry into indigenous song forms in Natügu [ntu] and English [eng]. The numerous positive results of using sung poetic translations support the psycholinguistic literature, and suggest that to achieve similar benefits it should become standard best practice in Bible translation to set Biblical poetry translations to music.