Abstract
A metaphor is a word picture; it presents a semantic association that requires deciphering. Ibn Ezra, Halevi and Maimonides each discuss the ramifications of using likenesses to describe the unknowable divine. This chapter considers the cognitive aspect of metaphor in light of Arabic-Aristotelian poetics and modern metaphor studies.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
For a brief examination of the term “Golden Age of Spain” see Chap. 1.
- 2.
Encyclopedia of Islam, s.v. “Adab.”
- 3.
Peter Heath, “Knowledge,” in The Literature of Al-Andalus, eds. Maria Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Sells (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 107; Cynthia Robinson, In Praise of Song: The Making of Courtly Culture in Al-Andalus and Provence, 1005–1134 A.D. (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 97ff.
- 4.
Ann Brener, Judah Halevi and His Circle of Hebrew Poets in Granada (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 61. Brener recreates the historical and social circumstances of Hebrew poets in late-eleventh and early-twelfth centuries al-Andalus . Through close readings of the poetry of the period, particularly the correspondence between Moses Ibn Ezra and Judah Halevi, she demonstrates that Hebrew poets adapted the paradigms of Islamic court conduct, particularly the affected performance during the majlis al-uns, or wine party of intimate friendship, to fashion themselves as loving companions composing songs of praise to one another.
- 5.
Robinson, In Praise of Song, 185.
- 6.
Henceforth referred to as Muḥāḍara. All references are to A.S. Halkin’s 1975 Hebrew translation, Sefer ha-‘iyunim ve-ha-diyunim al ha-shirah ha-‘ivrit, A.S. Halkin, ed. and transl. (Jerusalem: Hotsa’at Mekhitze nirdamim, 1975). English translations are my own.
- 7.
Henceforth called Kuzari.
- 8.
Henceforth called Guide.
- 9.
See, for example, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); and Miriam Taverniers, Metaphor and Metaphorology: A Selective Genealogy of Philosophical and Linguistic Conceptions of Metaphor from Aristotle to the 1900s (Gent: Academia Press, 2002).
- 10.
While most of these studies pay their scholarly debt to Aristotle’s formulation of the metaphor, unfortunately many of them give short shrift or completely ignore medieval studies of cognition and human psychology. See, for example, Taverniers, Metaphor and metaphorology (Gent: Academia Press, 2002).
- 11.
See, for example, BT Avodah Zarah 27a re: Gen. 16:13; Sanhedrin 85b re: Lev. 20:9. I am indebted to David Novak for explaining this distinction. See Novak, “The Talmud as a Source for Philosophical Reflection,” in History of Jewish Philosophy, eds. Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 71–72. Amos Funkenstein discusses the pre-Maimonidean and medieval uses of this hermeneutic principle in Perceptions of Jewish History (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), 88–90. These terms and others from the Talmud are discussed in Jay M. Harris, How Do We Know This?: Midrash and the Fragmentation of Modern Judaism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995), 25–50.
- 12.
Abraham Nuriel, “‘Dibra Torah kilshon bnei adam’ be-Moreh Nevukhim,” in Religion and Language: Philosophical Essays (Hebrew), edited by Moshe Hallamish and Asa Kasher (Tel Aviv: University Publishing Projects, 1981), 97.
- 13.
Maimonides, Guide, I:26.
- 14.
Student of Joseph b. Jacob Ibn Sahal (d. 1124), dayyan of Cordoba. C. De Valle and G. Stemberger, Saadia Ibn Danān El Orden de las Generaciones “Seder ha-Dorot” (Alcobendas, Madrid: Aben Ezra Ediciones, 1997), 67.
- 15.
Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 103.
- 16.
Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 79.
- 17.
Brener , Judah Halevi, 28. Brener’s book brings to life the Andalusī Hebrew practice of poetic imitation , or mu’arada, whereby one poet composed in a given rhyme and meter, and another poet “responded” with a new poem that used the same rhyme and meter and similar language. Rather than being viewed as plagiarism, poetic imitation paid homage to the original poem while demonstrating the improvising poet’s mastery over language, imagery and rhyme. Citing extensively from Andalusī Hebrew poetry, Brener demonstrates that Halevi “introduced” himself and later became a member of the Granadan circle of poets by creating excellent and delightful imitations of poems by Ibn Ezra . The high regard seems to have been mutual, as Ibn Ezra singles out: Abu al-Hasan ben ha-Levi, ha-tzollel le-dalut peninim, ba’al ha-ḥidudim ha-shanunim (“Judah Halevi, diver into the scarcity of pearls, master of sharp [or memorized] witticisms”). Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 79.
- 18.
See Haim Brody, “Moses ibn Ezra: Incidents in His Life,” Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s., 24 (1933): 309–330; Haim Schirmann, ed. Ha-shira ha-‘ivrit be-sefarad uve-provence. Book 1, Part 2 (Jerusalem, Bialik Institute; Tel Aviv: Dvir Company, 1959); Raymond P. Scheindlin, Wine, Women and Death: Medieval Hebrew Poems on the Good Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); and Raymond P. Scheindlin, The Gazelle: Medieval Hebrew Poems on God, Israel, and the Soul (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).
- 19.
Nehemiah Allony, “A Study of Kitāb al-muḥāḍara wal-mudhākara by Moses ibn Ezra,” in Studia Orientalia: Memoriae D.H. Baneth Dedicata [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University, 1979); Joseph Dana, Poetics of Medieval Hebrew Literature (According to Moshe ibn Ezra) [Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Dvir Company Limited, 1992); Dan Pagis, Secular Poetry and Poetic Theory: Moses ibn Ezra and his Contemporaries [Hebrew] (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1970).
- 20.
Paul B. Fenton, Philosophie et exégèse dans Le Jardin de la métaphore de Moïse Ibn ‘Ezra, philosophe et poète andalou du XIIe siècle (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997).
- 21.
Rina Drory speculates that Ibn Ezra wrote this treatise for a Jewish audience in Christian Spain, where Arabic-style poetry was not revered as it was in al-Andalus , to convince them of the supremacy of Hebrew poetry. However, Ibn Ezra’s treatise was not amongst the Judeo-Arabic books translated into Hebrew in Christian Spain or Provence . In fact, no complete Hebrew translation of Muḥāḍara was published until Halkin’s Sefer ha-iyunim ve-ha-diyunim in 1975. Drory, Models and Contacts: Arabic Literature and Its Impact on Medieval Jewish Culture (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 213.
- 22.
See Yosef Tobi, Proximity and Distance: Medieval Hebrew and Arabic Poetry , trans. Murray Rosovsky (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 134; Rina Drory, “The Hebrew and the Arabic Introductions of Saadia Gaon’s Sefer ha-Egron,” in Israel Oriental Studies XV: Language and Culture in the Near East, eds. Shlomo Izre’el and Rina Drory (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 11–23.
- 23.
Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 223.
- 24.
Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 223.
- 25.
Ibn Ezra here uses the Arabic word “badī‘” (tropes). Joseph Dana points out that Muḥāḍara borrows heavily from Greek rhetoric by way of Arabic poetics. It cites Qur’ānic and Arabic poetry alongside biblical and Hebrew poetic examples to illustrate its rhetorical lessons. Dana, Poetics of Medieval Hebrew Literature, 45.
- 26.
Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 225.
- 27.
For two wide-ranging examinations of Ibn Ezra’s treatise, see Pagis, Secular Poetry and Poetic Theory, and Dana, Poetics.
- 28.
Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 135.
- 29.
Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 149.
- 30.
Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 143. Ibn Ezra attributes these instructions to Aristotle.
- 31.
Aristotle, Poetics, 22, 1458a, 18–1458b, 5; and Rhetoric iii. 2,1404b—iii.5,1407b, 25. The Complete Works of Aristotle, vol. 2, ed. J. Barnes (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 2333–2335 and 2239–2245.
- 32.
Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 223.
- 33.
This is a reference to the passage in Bava Batra 15b that discusses the impiety and hypocrisy of the leaders during the era of Judges. “R. Johanan further said: What is the import of the words, ‘And it came to pass in the days of the judging of the judges?’ It was a generation that judged its judges. If the judge said to a man, ‘Take the splinter from between your teeth,’ he would retort, ‘Take the beam from between your eyes.’ If the judge said, ‘Your silver is dross,’ he would retort, ‘Your liquor is mixed with water.’”
- 34.
Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 227.
- 35.
Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 229.
- 36.
Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 225.
- 37.
Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 225. By “books of prophecy” he means the totality of Hebrew Scripture, the Tanakh.
- 38.
Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 227.
- 39.
“Wa-ma’ani al-isti‘āra al-khalima bi-shay lam yu‘araf bi-shay qad yu‘araf” / “Ve-‘inyan ha-hash-alah milah le-davar lo yadu‘ah mi-davar yadu‘ah.” Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 229.
- 40.
Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 229.
- 41.
Aristotle, Poetics, 1457b 7–9, in Complete Works, 2332. See also Poetics, 1459a 5–8 and Rhetoric iii 21405a 8–11, 35–37.
- 42.
Ricoeur quoted in Taverniers, Metaphor, 98. Taverniers’ otherwise comprehensive genealogy of metaphor studies jumps from Aristotle to the twentieth century, calling the centuries in between “a relatively barren period in the history of metaphorology.” Taverniers, Metaphor, 169.
- 43.
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 5.
- 44.
Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 229.
- 45.
Also called ta’wīl. Tobi, Proximity and Distance, 269. For a discussion of exegetical ta’wīl, see Mordechai Z. Cohen, Opening the Gates of Interpretation: Maimonides’ Biblical Hermeneutics in Light of his Geonic-Andalusī Heritage and Muslim Milieu (Leiden: Brill, 2011).
- 46.
Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 229. Halkin translates these Arabic terms as pshat and ha’avara.
- 47.
In the language of modern metaphorology, Max Black calls these “resonant metaphors [that] support a high degree of implicative elaboration.” “More about Metaphor” in Metaphor and Thought, ed. Andrew Ortony (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 26.
- 48.
Black, “More about Metaphor,” 26. In Hebrew these terms are geluyah and temirah. Dana, Poetics, 115.
- 49.
It is interesting to note that Ibn Ezra does not problematize metaphors that anthropomorphize divine attributes in the way that Maimonides does.
- 50.
Dana, Poetics, 115.
- 51.
In Arabic tashbīh; in Hebrew dimui. Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 259.
- 52.
Equivalent to “like” or “as” in a simile. Aristotle writes, “The simile is also a metaphor; the difference is but slight.” Rhetoric iii 4, 1406b20.
- 53.
Wolfhart Heinrichs, The Hand of the Northwind: Opinions on Metaphor and the Early Meaning of Isti‘āra in Arabic Poetics (Wiesbaden: Deutsche Morgenlandische Gesellschaft, 1977), 2, emphasis mine.
- 54.
Heinrichs, Northwind, 8.
- 55.
Heinrichs, Northwind, 9.
- 56.
Heinrichs, Northwind, 9. In Hebrew, hash-alah has a similar meaning.
- 57.
Encyclopedia of Islam, s.v. “badī‘”; and s.v. “bid‘a.”
- 58.
Heinrichs, Northwind, 12.
- 59.
Heinrichs, Northwind, 13.
- 60.
Heinrichs, Northwind, 16.
- 61.
Cited in Heinrichs, Northwind, 23.
- 62.
Cited in Heinrichs, Northwind, 22.
- 63.
Heinrichs, “Isti‘āra and Badī‘,” 181.
- 64.
Mordechai Z. Cohen, “Dimyon ve-higayon, emet ve-sheker: gishotehem shel Ramba ve-Rambam le-metaphora ha-miqra-it le-or ha-poetica ve-ha-philosophia ha-‘aravit,” Tarbiz 73 (2004), 422. Translation from Hebrew mine. See also his “Moses Ibn Ezra vs. Maimonides: Argument for a Poetic Definition of Metaphor (Isti‘āra),” Edebiyat 11 (2000): 1–28.
- 65.
Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 223–225.
- 66.
Cohen, “Dimyon ve-higayon,” 431; “Moses Ibn Ezra vs. Maimonides,” 20 n. 22.
- 67.
The difficulty of deciphering this type of metaphor is also expressed in Arabic rhetoric. An anecdote is told about the poet Abu Tammam, who was known and also derided for his far-fetched metaphors, such as “water of reproach”: “One of his mockers sent to him a bottle and said: ‘Put herein some water of reproach.’ Abu Tammam answered him: ‘If you send me a feather of the ‘wing of humility,’ then I will send you some water of reproach.’” Cohen, “Moses Ibn Ezra vs. Maimonides,” 15.
- 68.
In his commentary on Proverbs 4:17, R. David Kimchi (1160–1235) explains that the phrase “wine of violence” demonstrates that the wicked are as accustomed to violence as to drink. Cohen, “Moses Ibn Ezra vs. Maimonides,” 20 n. 23.
- 69.
Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 229.
- 70.
Although Aristotle’s Organon, the corpus of his logical writings, was translated from Syriac into Arabic in the ninth and early tenth centuries, Rhetoric and Poetics were initially ignored by Muslim theorists because these rhetorical treatises were seen to offer little instruction to those interested in Greek logic and rational argumentation. In addition, because Muslims had their own corpus of rhetorical treatises, they considered Hellenistic ideas to be alien. It was not until Muslim philosophers such as Alfārābī and Avicenna wrote commentaries on Aristotle’s rhetorical treatises that these works became accessible and widely-studied not only by philosophers but by students of adab . Uwe Vagelpohl, Aristotle’s Rhetoric in the East: The Syriac and Arabic Translation and Commentary Tradition (Leiden: 2008).
- 71.
Heinrichs, Northwind, 34.
- 72.
Heinrichs, Northwind, 32.
- 73.
Heinrichs, Northwind, 33.
- 74.
Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara, 229.
- 75.
Sara Newman, “Aristotle’s Notion of “Bringing-Before-the-Eyes”: Its Contributions to Aristotelian and Contemporary Conceptualizations of Metaphor, Style, and Audience,” Rhetorica 20, no. 1 (2002) 1–23.
- 76.
Aristotle discusses a similar metaphor, “rosy-fingered morn,” in Rhetoric iii 2, 1405b20.
- 77.
Cohen, “Moses Ibn Ezra vs. Maimonides,” 15.
- 78.
Ibn Ezra, Muḥāḍara 227.
- 79.
See Yehuda Even Shmuel’s introduction to his Hebrew translation Sefer ha-kuzari le-rabbi yehuda halevi, (Tel Aviv: Dvir Publishing Co. Ltd., 1994), 48. All references to Judah Halevi’s Kuzari will be to this edition, unless otherwise specified. Translations are my own.
- 80.
In al-Andalus , Jewish works of philosophy and polemic – as opposed to poetry, which was written in Hebrew – were generally written in Judeo-Arabic .
- 81.
Adam Shear, The Kuzari and the Shaping of Jewish Identity, 1167–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 21.
- 82.
For further reading on Judah Halevi’s Kuzari , see this partial list: Yochanan Silman, Philosopher and Poet: Judah Halevi, the Kuzari, and the Evolution of his Thought, trans. Lenn J. Schramm (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995); Raymond Scheindlin, The Song of the Distant Dove: Judah Halevi’s Pilgrimmage (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008); Ross Brann, The Compunctious Poet: Cultural Ambiguity and Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991); Barry Kogan, “Judah Halevi and His Use of Philosophy in The Kuzari” in The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy, eds. Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 111–135; Warren Zev Harvey, “Halevi’s Synthetic Theory of Prophecy,” in Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 13 (1996): 141–156; Adena Tanenbaum, The Contemplative Soul: Hebrew Poetry and Philosophical Theory in Medieval Spain (Leiden: Brill, 2002); Joseph Yahalom, Yehudah Halevi: Poetry and Pilgrimmage (Jerusalem: Hebrew University Magnes Press, 2009). For the history of the reception of Halevi’s Kuzari, see: Adam Shear, The Kuzari and the Shaping of Jewish Identity, 1167–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008). For a critique of Halevi as an anti-rationalist thinker, see: Harry A. Wolfson, Studies in the History of Philosophy and Religion, vol. 1, eds. Isadore Twersky and George H. Williams (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), chapters 1–3; Menachem Kellner, Maimonides’ Confrontation with Mysticism (Oxford: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 2006).
- 83.
Silman, Philosopher and Poet, 3.
- 84.
Halevi, Kuzari, 2:4; 4:3.
- 85.
Halevi, Kuzari, 2:54, 60 and 78.
- 86.
Halevi, Kuzari, 1:79.
- 87.
Plato, Gorgias 456b, trans. Terence Irwin (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979), 24. Although Halevi would likely not have read Gorgias , he references Plato’s Republic in Kuzari 3:19 and 4:3 and Timaeus in Kuzari 4:25. Hence, there is a parallel analogy in the Republic, where Plato compares judges and physicians, both of whom need experience and a command of rhetoric to render legal or medical opinions. Stephen Pender, “Between Medicine and Rhetoric,” in Early Science and Medicine, Vol. 10, No. 1 (2005): 43.
- 88.
Plato, Gorgias 504e, 82.
- 89.
Aristotle, Rhetoric i 1, 1355b9–15.
- 90.
Aristotle, Rhetoric i 1, 1355b3–7.
- 91.
Halevi, Kuzari, 1:99.
- 92.
Maimonides, The Guide of the Perplexed, trans. Shlomo Pines (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963). All references will be to this text, unless otherwise specified.
- 93.
English translation by Shlomo Pines , Hebrew translation by Samuel Ibn Tibbon. The Judeo-Arabic text used is: Moses Maimonides, Moreh ha-nevukhim: Dalālat al-ḥāʻirīn, trans. Joseph Kafiḥ (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-rav Kook, 1972).
- 94.
Harry A. Wolfson , “The Amphibolous Terms in Aristotle, Arabic Philosophy and Maimonides,” in Studies in the History of Philosophy and Religion, vol. 1, eds. Isadore Twersky and George H. Williams (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 455.
- 95.
That these are ambiguous terms is only implied in Aristotle. Wolfson, “The Amphibolous Terms,” 455.
- 96.
Wolfson, “The Amphibolous Terms,” 459.
- 97.
Wolfson, “The Amphibolous Terms,” 466, 470.
- 98.
Herbert A. Davidson disputes the assignment of this text to Maimonides; however, Sarah Stroumsa brings evidence from other scholars to attribute its authorship to Maimonides. Davidson, Moses Maimonides: The Man and His Works (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 313–322. Stroumsa, Maimonides in His World: Portrait of a Mediterranean Thinker (Paris and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2009), 127–128.
- 99.
Cohen, Dimyon ve-higayon, 423.
- 100.
Maimonides, Be-ur melekhet ha-higayon, 166–168.
- 101.
Maimonides, Be-ur melekhet ha-higayon, 168–169.
- 102.
Maimonides, Be-ur melekhet ha-higayon, 170.
- 103.
Maimonides, Be-ur melekhet ha-higayon, 170. The Arabic term for the Hebrew mesupak is mushakkik, writes Wolfson , which derives from the Arabic root shakk, to doubt. Similarly, the Hebrew mesupak contains the word safek, doubt. Both can be correctly translated as “ambiguous.” However, fifteenth-century Latin translations from Hebrew manuscripts of Arabic philosophy often translated the term mushakkik as “analogical.” Wolfson, “The Amphibolous Terms,” 475.
- 104.
The term for metaphor used by early Arabic translators of Aristotle’s Poetics was manqul, or transference, which is a more literal translation of the Greek metaphora. Avicenna’s commentary uses the term manqul to denote metaphor. For a discussion of manqul, see Cohen, Dimyon ve-higayon, 426–428.
- 105.
Maimonides, Be-ur melekhet ha-higayon, 171–172.
- 106.
Maimonides , Be-ur melekhet ha-higayon, 172. Wolfson , citing Greek and Arabic sources, explains how a term can be transferred from one thing to another thing with which it shares no similarity. First, when both originate from one beginning, for example, the term “medical” can be variously applied to a book, a small knife and a drug; second, when both lead to a similar end, for example, the term “healthy” applies to (and is the end result of) a drug, gymnastics and surgery; and third, when they share a beginning and an end, for example, the term ‘divine’ can be applied to all things. Wolfson , “The Amphibolous Terms,” 462. For his part, Heinrichs describes “cases of transference that are not based on similarity between donor (manqūl) and receptor (manqūl ilayhi)” as “old” metaphors. Heinrichs, Northwind, 24. To illustrate Heinrichs’ point, each of the illustrated examples is a tamthīl / analogy that can be expressed in a genitive construction such as “the book of medicine,” “the gymnastics of health” and “the creation of the divine.”
- 107.
Maimonides, Be-ur melekhet ha-higayon, 172.
- 108.
Heinrichs, Northwind, 34.
- 109.
Maimonides, Sefer Moreh ha-nebukhim le-rabbenu Moshe ben Maimon be-targumo shel rabbi Shmuel ben rabbi Yehuda Ibn Tibbon, ed. Yehuda Even-Shmuel (Jerusalem: Mosad ha-rav Kook, 2000), 86.
- 110.
Maimonides, Sefer Moreh ha-nebukhim, 4. For a definition of haskama as the conventional understanding of a term, see Israel Efros, Philosophical Terms in the Moreh Nebukim (New York: Columbia University Press, 1924), 33–35.
- 111.
Maimonides, Sefer Moreh ha-nebukhim, 4. For a definition of mishtatfim as homonymity or association, see Efros, Philosophical Terms, 43–44.
- 112.
“He grasps the truth of God.” Maimonides, Guide I:3.
- 113.
In Efros’ philosophical definition, we understand what God is not – that is, He is not associated with divine beings who create and govern the universe with Him, because to understand God as “commensurate” with other beings is a “logical difficult[y].” Efros, Philosophical Terms, 43–44.
- 114.
Here he brings Maimonides’ example from Treatise on Logic about the word “man” as applied to a human being and a statue. Efros, Philosophical Terms, 75.
- 115.
Efros, Philosophical Terms, 33–34. The example “living being” is from Maimonides, Treatise on Logic, 169.
- 116.
Cohen writes that the manqul, or “transferred” name, becomes a “dead ” metaphor , an expression we use with such regularity that the transferred term no longer carries a metaphoric meaning, or any direct relation to the original term it was transferred from. Like the term ‘ayin to denote both eye and well, these terms have no relation except in name. This is in opposition to the “borrowed” metaphor, isti‘āra , wherein the metaphoric meaning is perpetually dependent upon the original meaning. Cohen , Dimyon ve-higayon, 427–428.
- 117.
Abdulwalid Merwan (Jonah) Ibn Janah, Sefer ha-shorashim , trans. Judah Ibn Tibbon (Berlin: Druck von H. Itzkowski, 1896; Jerusalem: Herat Mekitsei Nirdamim, 1966). Ibn Janah is mentioned only once in Maimonides, Guide, I:42. Ibn Janah does not define isti‘āra, and uses it interchangeably with similar terms such as majāz, mathal (allegory/mashal), tamthīl and tashbīh . Cohen , Dimyon ve-higayon, 420.
- 118.
Maimonides, Guide I:23, 52–53.
- 119.
Cohen, Dimyon ve-higayon, 431.
- 120.
Maimonides, Guide I:23, 52–53.
- 121.
Maimonides Guide, I:23. Although human royalty is mortal, its authority allows it to propagate its will and command obedience. Likewise, God exerts his authority and brings about his actions through his will.
- 122.
Maimonides, Guide, I:23.
- 123.
Cohen , Dimyon ve-higayon, 436. For more on imagination and medieval psychology, including the distinction between imagination and intellect, see Chap. 3.
- 124.
Cohen, Dimyon ve-higayon, 436. In his book Opening the Gates of Interpretation, (185–239), Cohen provides a detailed account of allegory, but not in contradistinction to metaphor.
- 125.
In Opening the Gates of Interpretation, Cohen writes that he does not deal specifically with amphibolous terms because they are not often mentioned in the Guide (186).
- 126.
This issue will be analyzed in Chap. 3.
- 127.
Cohen, Opening the Gates of Interpretation, 187. See also Mordechai Z. Cohen, “Logic to Interpretation: Maimonides’ Use of al-Fārābī’s Model of Metaphor,” Zutot: Perspectives on Jewish Culture 2 (2002): 104–113.
- 128.
Cohen, Opening the Gates of Interpretation, 187.
- 129.
Paul Ricoeur, “The Power of Speech: Science and Poetry,” trans. Robert F. Scuka, Philosophy Today 29, no. 1 (1985): 61.
- 130.
Eva Feder Kittay, Metaphor: Its Cognitive Force and Linguistic Structure (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 107.
- 131.
Ricoeur , “The Power of Speech,” 62. He argues that words are not in and of themselves poetic or scientific or mathematical or philosophical. It is the way that words are used that renders them poetically or scientifically or mathematically or philosophically significant.
- 132.
Kittay , Metaphor, 113. The idea that a word has no meaning outside of the context of a sentence originates with Gottlob Frege, the nineteenth-century German philosopher. Rather than look at a word as a linguistic unit or as a representation of a thing, this view holds that word meaning is completely dependent upon how we experience the world we live in, which influences the way we view reality. In a metaphor, then, one conceptual domain, the “source domain,” is figuratively applied to another, “target domain.” The target domain of the metaphor is thus understood in terms of some experiential aspect of the source domain. Taverniers, Metaphor and Metaphorology, 104, 120.
- 133.
Maimonides, Guide, I:23.
- 134.
Maimonides, Guide, I:23.
- 135.
Isaiah, 26:21.
- 136.
James A. Diamond, in Maimonides and the Hermeneutics of Concealment: Deciphering Scripture and Midrash in The Guide of the Perplexed (Albany: State University of New York, 2002) writes: “Poetic metaphor taken literally, according to Ricoeur , creates a ‘semantic collision’ that leads to a ‘logical absurdity where meaning would be annulled by incompatibility.’” Diamond writes that Ricoeur’s formulation is instructive in comprehending how Maimonides would want us to understand “all anthropomorphic language regarding God ” (10).
- 137.
Maimonides, Guide, I:36. See also Diamond, Maimonides and the Hermeneutics of Concealment, 15.
- 138.
This is a term used by Ricoeur, in “The Power of Speech,” 65.
- 139.
Sources for this expression: Brachot 31b (where the origin of this axiom is attributed to Rabbi Akiva, who used it to explain the verse “If You will look” in I Sam. 1:11, where Hannah asks God to “look” upon her misery); Ketubot 67a; Kiddushin 17b; Gittin 41b; Nedarim 3a; Baba Metziah 31b, 94b; Avodah Zara 27a; Sanhedrin 56a, 64b, 85b, 90b; Makkot 12a; Zevaḥim 108b; Kritut 11a; Arakhin 3a; Niddah 32b, 44a. In the Talmud, this axiom is used to explain seemingly superfluous scriptural terms and phrases whose meanings cannot be readily discerned because fallible humans have a limited ability to understand God’s communication .
- 140.
See Exodus 33:18–23. For a survey of ontology and epistemology in medieval Muslim and Jewish thought, see Peter Adamson and Richard C. Taylor, The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Herbert A. Davidson, Alfarabi , Avicenna, and Averroes, on Intellect: Their Cosmologies, Theories of the Active Intellect and Theories of Human Intellect (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Kenneth Seeskin, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Maimonides (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Colette Sirat, A History of Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Age (Paris: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
- 141.
Maimonides, Guide, I:26.
- 142.
Maimonides, Guide, Introduction, 11.
- 143.
Maimonides, Guide, Introduction, 11.
- 144.
Maimonides, Guide, I:56.
- 145.
Maimonides, Guide, I:56. Here we have a more distinct definition of the third class of scriptural terms, ambiguous or ambivalent terms, than the one given by Maimonides in the first chapter of the Guide. This class corresponds to “new” or “dual” metaphors that contain both tamthīl (analogy) and tashbīh (simile ).
- 146.
Wolfson, Amphibolous Terms, 470.
- 147.
Maimonides, Guide, Introduction 11.
- 148.
Maimonides, Guide, I:32.
- 149.
Maimonides, Guide, I:32.
- 150.
Maimonides explains this further in Book III. However, Maimonides’ prescription is an ideal and it remains to be seen how human beings can transcend the intellectual demands of “knowing” God through images and language. As Ricoeur writes, “Through symbolism, metaphor, as the gift of discourse, comes to structure within language the profound and cosmic being of man. But, in return, it is always by means of a strategy of language, of which metaphor is the most remarkable process, that the mythico-poetic depths of man can be evoked.” “The Power of Speech,” 68.
Bibliography
Adamson, Peter, and Richard C. Taylor. 2005. The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Allony, Nehemiah. 1979. A Study of Kitāb al-muḥāḍara wa-l-mudhākara by Moses ibn Ezra [Hebrew]. Studia Orientalia: Memoriae D.H. Baneth Dedicata. Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University.
Aristotle. 1984. The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation. Ed. Jonathan Barnes. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
———. 1991. On Rhetoric: A Theory of Civic Discourse. Trans. George A. Kennedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bearman, P.J., et al., eds. 2000. The Encyclopedia of Islam. Leiden: Brill.
Black, Max. 1993. More About Metaphor. In Metaphor and Thought, ed. Andrew Ortony. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Brann, Ross. 1991. The Compunctious Poet: Cultural Ambiguity and Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Brener, Ann. 2005. Judah HaLevi and His Circle of Hebrew Poets in Granada. Leiden: Brill.
Brody, Haim. 1933. Moses ibn Ezra: Incidents in His Life. Jewish Quarterly Review 24: 309–330.
Cohen, Mordechai Z. 2000. Moses ibn Ezra vs. Maimonides: Argument for a Poetic Definition of Metaphor (Isti’āra). Edebiyat 11: 1–28.
———. 2004. Dimyon ve-higayon, emet ve-sheker: gishotehem shel Ramba ve-Rambam le-metafora ha-miqra-it le-or ha-poetiqa ve-ha-filosophia ha-‘aravit. Tarbiz 73: 417–458.
———. 2011. Opening the Gates of Interpretation: Maimonides’ Biblical Hermeneutics in Light of His Geonic-Andalusian Heritage and Muslim Milieu. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Dana, Joseph. 1992. Poetics of Medieval Hebrew Literature (According to Moshe ibn Ezra) [Hebrew]. Tel Aviv: Dvir Company Limited.
Davidson, Herbert A. 1992. Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, on Intellect: Their Cosmologies, Theories of the Active Intellect and Theories of Human Intellect. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2005. Moses Maimonides: The Man and His Works. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
De Valle, C., and G. Stemberger. 1997. Saadia ibn Danān El Orden de las Generaciones “Seder ha-Dorot”. Alcobendas/Madrid: Aben Ezra Ediciones; Edicion critica.
Diamond, James. 2002. Maimonides and the Hermeneutics of Concealment: Deciphering Scripture and Midrash in the Guide of the Perplexed. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Drory, Rina. 1995. The Hebrew and the Arabic Introductions of Saadia Gaon’s Sefer ha-Egron. In Israel Oriental Studies XV: Language and Culture in the Near East, ed. Shlomo Izre’el and Rina Drory. Leiden: Brill.
———. 2000. Models and Contacts: Arabic Literature and Its Impact on Medieval Jewish Culture. Leiden: Brill.
Efros, Israel. 1924. Philosophical Terms in the Moreh Nebukim. New York: Columbia University Press.
Fenton, Paul B. 1996. Philosophie et exégèse dans le Jardin de la métaphore de Moïse Ibn Ezra, philosophe et poète andalou de XIIe siècle. New York: Brill.
Frank, Daniel H., and Oliver Leaman, eds. 2003. The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Funkenstein, Amos. 1993. Perceptions of Jewish History. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Halevi, Judah. 1994. Sefer ha-Kuzari le-rabbi Yehuda ha-Levi. Translated and Annotated by Yehuda Even Shmuel. Tel Aviv: Dvir Publishing Company Limited.
Harris, Jay M. 1995. How Do We Know This?: Midrash and the Fragmentation of Modern Judaism. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Harvey, Warren Zev. 1996. Halevi’s Synthetic Theory of Prophecy. Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 13: 141–156.
Heath, Peter. 2000. Knowledge. In The Literature of Al-Andalus, ed. Maria Rosa Menocal, Raymond P. Scheindlin, and Michael Sells. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Heinrichs, Wolfhart. 1977. The Hand of the Northwind: Opinions on Metaphor and the Early Meaning of Isti’āra in Arabic Poetics. Wiesbaden: Deutsche Morgenlandische Gesellschaft.
———. 1984. Isti’āra and Badī’ and Their Terminological Relationship in Early Arabic Literary Criticism. In Zeitschrift für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschafen 1, ed. Fuat Sezgin. Frankfurt am Main: Institut für Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften an der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität.
Ibn Ezra, Moses. 1975. Sefer ha-‘iyunim veha-diyunim al ha-shirah ha-‘ivrit [Kitāb al-muḥāḍara wa-l-mudhākara]. Ed. and Trans. Avraham Shlomo Halkin. Jerusalem: Hotsa-at Mekitze nirdamim.
Kellner, Menachem. 2006. Maimonides’ Confrontation with Mysticism. Oxford: The Littman Library of Jewish Civilization.
Kittay, Eva Feder. 1987. Metaphor: Its Cognitive Force and Linguistic Structure. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Kogan, Barry S. 2003. Judah Halevi and His Use of Philosophy in the Kuzari. In Cambridge Companion to Medieval Jewish Philosophy, 111–135. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press.
Maimonides, Moses. 1963. The Guide of the Perplexed. Trans. Shlomo Pines. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
———. 1972. Moreh ha-nevukhim: Dalālat al-ḥāʻirīn. Trans. Joseph Kafiḥ. Jerusalem: Mosad ha-rav Kook.
———. 1987. Be-ur melekhet ha-higayon le-rabbeinu Moshe ben Maimon. Trans. Joseph Kafiḥ. Kiryat Ono: Makhon Mishnat ha-Rambam.
———. 2000. Sefer Moreh ha-nebukhim le-rabbenu Moshe ben Maimon be-targumo shel rabbi Shmuel ben rabbi Yehuda ibn Tibbon. Ed. Yehuda Even-Shmuel. Jerusalem: Mosad ha-rav Kook.
Newman, Sara J. 2002. Aristotle’s Notion of ‘Bringing-Before-the-Eyes’: Its Contributions to Aristotelian and Contemporary Conceptualizations of Metaphor, Style, and Audience. Rhetorica 20: 1–23.
Novak, David. 1997. The Talmud as a Source for Philosophical Reflection. In History of Jewish Philosophy, ed. Daniel H. Frank and Oliver Leaman, 62–82. London/New York: Routledge.
Nuriel, Abraham. 1981. Dibra Torah kilshon bnei adam be-Moreh Nevukhim. In Religion and Language: Philosophical Essays [Hebrew], ed. Moshe Hallamish and Asa Kasher. Tel Aviv: University Publishing Projects.
Pagis, Dan. 1970. Secular Poetry and Poetic Theory: Moses ibn Ezra and His Contemporaries [Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute.
Pender, Stephen. 2005. Between Medicine and Rhetoric. Early Science and Medicine 10 (1): 36–64.
Plato. 1979. Gorgias. Trans. Terence Irwin. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Ricoeur, Paul. 1985. The Power of Speech: Science and Poetry. Transl. Robert F. Scuka. Philosophy Today 29 (1): 59–70.
———. 2003. The Rule of Metaphor: The Creation of Meaning in Language. London: Routledge.
Robinson, Cynthia. 2002. Praise of Song: The Making of Courtly Culture in al-Andalus and Provence, 1005–1134 A.D. Leiden: Brill.
Scheindlin, Raymond P. 1986. Wine, Women and Death: Medieval Hebrew Poems on the Good Life. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 1991. The Gazelle: Medieval Hebrew Poems on God, Israel, and the Soul. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press.
———. 2008. The Song of the Distant Dove: Judah Halevi’s Pilgrimmage. New York: Oxford University Press.
Schirmann, Haim, ed. 1959. Ha-shira ha-‘ivrit be-sefarad uve-provence. Book 1, Part 2. Jerusalem/Tel Aviv: Bialik Institute and Dvir Company.
Seeskin, Kenneth, ed. 2005. The Cambridge Companion to Maimonides. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.
Shear, Adam. 2012. The Kuzari and the Shaping of Jewish Identity, 1167–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Silman, Yochanan. 1995. Philosopher and Prophet: Judah Halevi, the Kuzari, and the Evolution of His Thought. Trans. Lenn J. Schramm. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Sirat, Colette. 1996. A History of Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages. Paris: Cambridge University Press.
Stroumsa, Sarah. 2009. Maimonides in His World: Portrait of a Mediterranean Thinker. Paris/Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Tanenbaum, Adena. 2002. The Contemplative Soul: Hebrew Poetry and Philosophical Theory in Medieval Spain. Leiden: Brill.
Taverniers, Miriam. 2002. Metaphor and Metaphorology: A Selective Genealogy of Philosophical and Linguistic Conceptions of Metaphor from Aristotle to the 1900s. Gent: Academia Press.
Tobi, Yosef. 2004. Proximity and Distance: Medieval Hebrew and Arabic Poetry. Trans. Murray Rosovsky. Leiden: Brill.
Vagelpohl, Uwe. 2008. Aristotle’s Rhetoric in the East: The Syriac and Arabic Translation and Commentary Tradition. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Wolfson, Harry Austryn. 1973. The Amphibolous Terms in Aristotle, Arabic Philosophy and Maimonides. In Studies in the History of Philosophy and Religion, ed. Isadore Twersky and George H. Williams, vol. 1. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
———. 1973–1977. Studies in the History of Philosophy and Religion. Eds. Isadore Twersky and George H. Williams. Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press.
Yahalom, Joseph. 2009. Yehudah Halevi: Poetry and Pilgrimmage. Jerusalem: Hebrew University Magnes Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Roberts-Zauderer, D.L. (2019). “Human Language”: Classifying Metaphor in Jewish Sources. In: Metaphor and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Thought. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29422-9_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29422-9_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-29421-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-29422-9
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)