AJS Review: The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies

This new contribution by Lesley DiFransico to the growing field of the study of biblical metaphor considers the theme of washing away sin, with the goal of "trac[ing] the trajectory of the metaphor's development in the Hebrew Bible" and relating that "to the later practice of washing away sin attested in the sectarian literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the New Testament gospels" (3). Observing that "immersion or rinsing in water is not attested in the Hebrew Bible as an actual practice performed to solve the problem of sin" (19), the book examines the [End Page 195] interrelationships between the relevant metaphors in the Hebrew Bible and explores the potential impact of these Hebrew Bible texts on later communities in which practices involving water as a solution to sin are known.

After an initial chapter that introduces the topic and describes DiFransico's approach, which involves applying the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, the core of the book consists of a series of close readings of passages in which language relating to the washing away of sin is found. Chapter 2 treats texts in Isaiah and Jeremiah (specifically, Isaiah 1:2–20; 4:2–6; Jeremiah 2:20–25; 4:11–18) containing novel metaphorical expressions envisioning sin as something that can be washed; chapter 3 discusses Psalm 51, Ezekiel 36:22–36, and Zechariah 13:1, arguing that these are based on "the more specific dimension of ritual washing and/or cleansing" (79; emphasis mine); and chapter 4 explains passages in the Dead Sea Scrolls (especially 1QS II, 25–III, 12; and IV, 15–26) and the New Testament (focusing mostly on the figure of John the Baptist) as representing "an additional stage in the development of the concept of washing away sin in which the metaphorical concept is put into ritual practice" (144). A brief concluding chapter recapitulates the main arguments.

The textual analyses in the book are, for the most part, competently done. Each passage is presented in the author's translation along with numerous exegetical notes, followed by a more extensive "comment and analysis" section that treats various interpretive issues. A strength of the book lies in its consideration of the precise contours of each metaphor in question: from the source and target domains of the metaphor, to the theological implications of the expression in context, to possible resonances with other biblical texts. The format allows for more in-depth discussion of the metaphorical dimension of these texts than one finds in a standard commentary.

That said, despite the textual focus that this format makes possible, DiFransico occasionally overlooks details that have broader implications for the overall argument. Two examples are worth mentioning. In Jeremiah 2:22, DiFransico renders the phrase as "the stain your iniquity is before me" (63, 65), ostensibly taking the first two words as a construct phrase (following such established translations as the NRSV and NIV). However, despite devoting a footnote (63 n. 125) specifically to the word , DiFransico does not observe that its masoretic pointing precludes the possibility of a construct form, which would have had patakh and not qamets as the second vowel. If one construes this participle as a substantive, denoting an object that is stained, then this would be consistent with an understanding of the metaphor as referring to stained clothing (cf. DiFransico's discussion in 65–68). But whether or not such an interpretation is to be preferred, the grammatical issue deserves at least some attention in view of its importance to the discussion.

A second example is the handling of the phrase in 1QS 3, 9. Here DiFransico offers divergent renderings of the phrase throughout the discussion, alternatively opting for "waters of repentance" (179, 185 [bottom]) or "running waters" (181, 185 [top], 186), with a footnote (181 n. 12) arguing for the "running waters" interpretation over...