Metaphor and the Poetics of Scriptural Rewriting in Jubilees

This essay examines agricultural or botanical metaphors in the book of Jubilees with a focus on understanding the mechanics of the activity of rewriting and its engagement with metaphor. The use of metaphoric language is organized according to three categories determined by the relationship between the scriptural text and Jubilees: (1) direct reproduction of a metaphorical Vorlage; (2) metaphoric language borrowed from elsewhere in the scriptural corpus; (3) “new” metaphorical expressions. Examination of these three categories leads to two main conclusions. First, this sample demonstrates that innovation in the production of metaphor is quite modest within Jubilees. Second, in the use of metaphoric
language in Jubilees one observes a continuation or further extension of linguistic and traditionary processes at work in the diachronic development of the scriptural corpus itself. In both of these aspects, the use of metaphoric language in Jubilees appears to reflect in miniature the broader aims of the composition as a whole.