The Function of Metaphor in the Depictions of Disability in the Hebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls

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Before modern medicine and technological advancements, impairments caused by vision or hearing loss, broken bones, or chronic illness would have largely gone untreated. Consequently, almost everyone in antiquity would have experienced some form of impairment within their lifetime (Garland 1995). Whetherimpairments are to be regarded as disabilities is determined by societal structures and perceptions (Oliver 1983); accounts of impairments in the Hebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) portray many impairments which are rectifiable in modern society as disabilities. For instance, in the DSS, shortsightedness,which is described as having 'dimmed eyes' (4QDb 5.iii.1), was considered a disability and resulted in partial social exclusion (Hempel 1998).This project will investigate references to disability in the Hebrew Bible and the DSS (Melcher et. al. 2018; Dorman 2007), focussing specifically on the function of metaphor in ancient constructions of disability. Metaphors are particularly ubiquitous in attempts to describe lived experiences that are difficult to articulate (Littlemore 2019), and often subconsciously reveal cultural perceptions. Therefore, I will analyse the literary and cultural function of metaphors in descriptions of disability in order to determine the role disability played in the thought world and social structures portrayed in these texts.I will examine the extent to which the meaning and function of these metaphors are shaped by their literary and/or historical contexts (Cameron et. al. 2009). For example, in the prophetic literature of the Hebrew Bible, disabilities such as deafness and blindness function pejoratively as metaphors for ignorance and disobedience (Isaiah 29.18; 42.18). In the DSS, hymnic texts extend the function of these metaphors: being 'free' of these same disabilities, both physically and metaphorically, is a precondition for membership of the Community (e.g. 4Q434 1.i.2-4).