With the publication of her dissertation, completed under John Barton at Oxford University, Sharon Moughtin-Mumby has joined productively in the burgeoning interpretative debate concerning what has traditionally been called ‘the marriage metaphor’ in the prophetic books. Moughtin-Mumby's contribution to the debate is a methodological challenge to the historical-critical method which has dominated the field for so long and which continues to affect interpretation, as well as a refinement of the literary approaches which have begun to challenge the historical-critical approach's hegemony in recent decades. While historical-critical scholarship has tended to take a ‘substitutionary’ approach to metaphor, in which other terms and items may be supplied in place of the metaphor itself, the author suggests that a ‘cognitive’ approach provides more secure and accurate footing from which to analyse metaphorical texts. This cognitive approach holds that ‘metaphor is not simply a “substitution” for another word, and any paraphrase will always result in a “loss of cognitive content”’ (p. 4). Instead, this theoretical orientation stresses the framing context in which the metaphor occurs, allowing the metaphor to participate fully in the text's creation of meaning without being subject to ‘translation’. Unlike most purely literary theory, however, this study adopts what Moughtin-Mumby calls a ‘literary-historical’ approach, which takes into account dimensions of socio-cultural and historical significance. The author allows for the diachronic development of texts (most explicitly in regard to Hosea 1–3), and attempts to situate language of ‘prostitution’ within its larger socio-historical and literary contexts. Moughtin-Mumby discovers that the ‘marriage metaphor’, once thought by traditional interpreters to be a stable metaphor representing Israel's various forms of apostasy as ‘prostitution’, is not in fact so monolithic and stable as supposed.

Through several careful studies of the use of metaphor and other literary elements in the prophetic texts Isaiah, Jeremiah 2:1–4;4, Ezekiel 16 and 23, and Hosea, Moughtin-Mumby argues that no single ‘marriage metaphor’ existed, ready for appropriation, in Israel. Two significant conclusions follow. First, the demonstrated variation in use and context (the frame) of this metaphorical focus (closely related to the ‘vehicle’ in other descriptive taxonomies of metaphorical language) suggests that there is no monolithic meaning (or ‘tenor’) to be attributed to instances of such metaphor; therefore, the phrase ‘sexual and marital metaphorical language’ supplants ‘the marriage metaphor’ throughout this study, since the former is a more accurate indicator of the book's subject matter. Moreover, in Moughtin-Mumby's study, the common reduction of ‘prostitution’ (זנה) to cultic prostitution, posited so frequently by traditional readings, is drawn into question and ultimately dismantled as a functional and meaningful category. Second, in studying the true variety of uses of such metaphorical language as it is employed throughout the prophetic books, Moughtin-Mumby draws attention to the peculiar literary functions served in each prophetic book. For example, sexual metaphorical language in Jeremiah 2:1–4;4 participates in the prophetic book's characterisation of Judah as senseless to the point of self-destruction, while in Ezekiel 16, this language offers the reader ‘the opportunity for rereading Jerusalem as a confident, assured female . . . able and willing to stand up to YHWH and take control of her own destiny’ (p. 273), although this reading does not emerge without problems.

A few methodological points will merit further scrutiny in future engagements with this book: one wonders, for example, if Moughtin-Mumby's continued use of the term ‘prostitution’ to render Hebrew זנה does not depart from her claim to a literary-historical investigation. She appeals to the cognitive approach to metaphor in order to defend her choice not to perform a sociological study of what the term actually indicated in antiquity, but to rely instead on the literature's ‘associated commonplaces’ – which, she recognises, ‘are not necessarily based in fact or practice’ – to inform her readings (p. 44). While this may be a practice consistent with the cognitive approach to metaphor, it is difficult to sustain the claim that it does complete justice to a socio-cultural and historical study (problems with the practice arise sporadically through the remainder of the book, e.g. pp. 61, 99 and 121). Nonetheless, Moughtin-Mumby's study provides a valuable rereading of several disconcerting prophetic texts, is replete with attentive and worthwhile observations, and should be considered a volume worthy of much contemplation in future investigations into the sexual and marital metaphorical language of the prophetic books. The author offers a sophisticated reading of these often unsettling passages, and does so with a sincere concern for how they may be read productively in modern devotional communities.