Moving beyond symbol and myth: Understanding the kingdom of God through metaphor (Norman Perrin)

New Testament discussion over the meaning of the kingdom of God has been dominated by the scholarship of Norman Perrin. Perrin, adopting insights about symbols and myths from the works of Philip Wheelwright and Paul Ricoeur, categorized the kingdom of God as a symbol that evoked the myth of Yahweh acting as king. However, there are numerous difficulties with Perrin's analysis including: (1) its inability to account for the diversity of expression found with the use of the kingdom/kingship of God; (2) its inadequacy in explaining the historical evolution of the symbol; (3) its tendency to create a common Biblical theologumenon; (4) its nonadherence to literary critical principles and (5) its inattention to the distinctive objectives of Old Testament and New Testament scholarship that resulted in an emphasis on the original meaning of the symbol.; This study, in an effort to address the difficulties with Perrin's scholarship and in response to ongoing suggestions made by various scholars, examines the kingship/kingdom of God as a metaphor. Drawing upon insights provided by cognitive linguistics and literary analysis, the study investigates the metaphor 'God is king' within the texts of the Hebrew Bible. This diachronical study emphasizes the objectives of New Testament---the meaning of the metaphor within Second Temple Judaism. Therefore, it places the texts within a historical trajectory based on the last stage of redaction. The findings of this study are preliminary because of the provisional nature of metaphorical studies. Nevertheless, the study suggests: (1) the major intellectual activity for the kingship of God occurred in connection with the Babylonian exile and it was part of the response to the theological crises of the exile. (2) The Bildfeld of the metaphor is centered on Exodus events and the covenantal relationship between Yahweh and Israel including Yahweh's role as lawgiver, judge, protector and benefactor. (3) The Bildfeld also incorporated the Assyrian, Babylonian, and Persian ideas of the king as suzerain. Yahweh is the cosmic suzerain, who controls human potentates. The interaction of the semantic fields associated with Yahweh and human kingship facilitates the diversity of expressions found in the Hebrew Bible.