Hosea 4–14 in Twentieth-Century Scholarship BRAD E. KELLE Point Loma Nazarene University, San Diego, CA, USA
[email protected] ABSTRACT Twentieth-century scholarship on Hosea has addressed a wide range of interpretive questions that often reflect the common approaches to the prophetic literature in general, yet an inordinate amount of atten- tion has been paid to the marriage and family imagery in Hosea 1–3. In recent years, scholars have corrected this tendency, exploring ways that texts throughout Hosea 4–14 offer insights into long-standing critical issues. Rather than exhibiting a movement in which newer methodological perspectives have replaced older traditional approaches, all of the established, modern scholarly pursuits remain prominent in the current study of Hosea 4–14. Scholars are now reformulating the traditional questions, however, from new angles largely generated by interdisciplinary influences. These influences have also given rise to previously unexplored lines of inquiry, such as synchronic, literary, and theological readings, Book of the Twelve studies, and metaphor theory. Studies using metaphor theory with an eye toward religious, political, socio-economic, and gender consid- erations seem likely to occupy the central place in Hosea scholarship in the immediate future. Keywords: Baal, Book of the Twelve, covenant, eighth-century history, feminist criticism, form criticism, goddess, history of scholarship, Hosea 1–4, Israelian Hebrew, metaphor, religion of Israel Currents in Biblical Research © The Author(s), 2010. Reprints and Permissions: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav Vol. 8.3: 314-375 ISSN 1476-993X DOI: 10.1177/1476993X09346514 Downloaded from cbi.sagepub.com at Bobst Library, New York University on April 28, 2015 KELLE Hosea 4–14 in Twentieth-Century Scholarship 315 1.