Reframing Biblical Studies: When Language and Text Meet Culture, Cognition, and Context

Description

Until recently, biblical studies and studies of the written and material culture of the ancient Near East have been fragmented, governed by experts who are confined within their individual disciplines' methodological frameworks and patterns of thinking. The consequence has been that, at present, concepts and the terminology for examining the interaction of textual and historical complexes are lacking. However, we can learn from the cognitive sciences. Until the end of the 1980s, neurophysiologists, psychologists, pediatricians, and linguists worked in complete isolation from one another on various aspects of the human brain. Then, beginning in the 1990s, one group began to focus on processes in the brain, thereby requiring that cell biologists, neurologists, psychiatrists, psychologists, linguists, and other relevant scientists collaborate with each other. Their investigation revealed that the brain integrates all kinds of information; if this were not the case, we would not be able to catch even a glimpse of the brain's processing activity. By analogy, van Wolde's proposal for biblical scholarship is to extend its examination of single elements by studying the integrative structures that emerge out of the interconnectivity of the parts. This analysis is based on detailed studies of specific relationships among data of diverse origins, using language as the essential device that links and permits expression. This method can be called a cognitive relational approach. Van Wolde bases her work on cognitive concepts developed by Ronald Langacker. With these concepts, biblical scholars will be able to study emergent cognitive structures that issue from biblical words and texts in interaction with historical complexes. Van Wolde presents a method of analysis that biblical scholars can follow to investigate interactions among words and texts in the Hebrew Bible, material and nonmaterial culture, and comparative textual and historical contexts. In a significant portion of the book, she then exemplifies this method of analysis by applying it to controversial concepts and passages in the Hebrew Bible (the crescent moon; the in-law family; the city gate; differentiation and separation; Genesis 1, 34; Leviticus 18, 20; Numbers 5, 35; Deuteronomy 21; and Ezekiel 18, 22, 33). Reframing Biblical Studies: When Language and Text Meet Culture, Cognition, and Context Contents Preface Abbreviations List of Figures 1 Introduction 1.1. Introduction 1.2. Frameworks of thinking in biblical studies 1.2.1. Literary studies 1.2.2. Linguistic studies 1.2.3. Historical studies 1.2.4. Archaeological studies 1.2.5. Integrated studies 1.3. Reframing biblical studies 1.4. Aims and structure of this book 2 Mental Processing or Cognition 2.1. Cognition, categories, and culture 2.2. Cognition, embodied mind, and experiential realism 2.3. Cognitive Linguistics 2.4. Cognitive Grammar: Symbolization and coding 2.5. Cognitive Grammar: Grounding and integration 2.6. Summary 2.7. Three examples: Moon, sea, and love 2.7.1. The crescent moon in ancient Babylonia 2.7.2. The sea in the ancient world 2.7.3. Love in English and in Biblical Hebrew 3 Words as Tips of Encyclopedic Icebergs 3.1. Words and meaning: A historical survey 3.2. Words, culture, and cognition: Explanatory concepts 3.2.1. Introduction 3.2.2. Profile, base, region, ami cognitive domain 3.2.3. Prototypical scenario 3.3. Three examples: Scribe, anger, and city gate 3.3.1. The ancient Egyptian word zakhau 3.3.2. Anger in English, Japanese, and Biblical Hebrew 3.3.3. The city gate in ancient Cisjordan 4 Grammar as Cognition, Part 1: Nominal Profiles 4.1. Nominal and relational profile, trajector, and landmark 4.2. Grounding and integration 4.3. Summary of chapters 4, 5, and 6 4.4. Nominal profiles: Independent and relational nouns 4.5. Relational nouns in Biblical Hebrew 4.5.1. Nouns designating family and family in-law relationships 4.5.2. Nouns designating affiliation 4.5.3. Nouns designating partial or spatial entities 4.5.4. Participial nouns 4.5.5. Infinitives absolute 4.6. Grounding of nominals in usage events 4.7. Integration of nominals in texts and valence relations 4.8. Example: The nouns "child” and ילד yeled 5 Grammar as Cognition, Part 2: Atemporal Relations 5.1. Introduction 5.2. Simple atemporal relations 5.3. Complex atemporal relations 5.4. Atemporal relations in Biblical Hebrew 5.4.1. Prepositions 5.4.2. Conjunctions, adverbs, and particles 5.4.3. Adjectives 5.4.4. Participles 5.4.5. Infinitives construct 5.5. Example: The preposition על-פני ˁal-pĕnê in Genesis 1 5.5.1. The preposition ˁal-pĕnê in Genesis 1:2a 5.5.2. The preposition ˁal-pĕnê in Genesis 1:2b 5.5.3. The preposition ˁal-pĕnê in Genesis 1:20b 5.5.4. The preposition ˁal-pĕnê in Genesis 1:29 6 Grammar as Cognition, Part 3: Temporal Relations 6.1. Introduction 6.2. Stative and dynamic verb types 6.3. Stative and dynamic verbs in Biblical Hebrew 6.3.1. Definitions of terms 6.3.2. Survey of Biblical Hebrew grammars 6.3.3. Verb types in Biblical Hebrew 6.4. Example: An analysis of the temporal and atemporal relations in Genesis 1 with an emphasis on the verb ברא bārāˀ 6.4.1. Atemporal and temporal relations in Genesis 1 6.4.1.1. The beginning 6.4.1.2. The making of light (vv. 3–4, 14–15) 6.4.1.3. The making of the heaven (vv. 6–7) 6.4.1.4. The making of the earth (vv. 9–10, vv. 11–12) 6.4.1.5. The making of the animals (vv. 20–25) 6.4.1.6. The making of the human being (vv. 26–31) 6.4.1.7. The finale (Genesis 2:1–3) 6.4.2. The verb ברא bārāˀ in Genesis 1 7 Cognitive Method of Analysis 7.1. Reflections on the method of analysis 7.2. Cognitive method of analysis 8 Mental Processing Expressed by the Word טמא ṭimmēˀ 8.1. The category of purity/impurity and its cognitive domains 8.2. Eight biblical texts with טמא ṭimmēˀ 8.2.1. Leviticus 18 8.2.2. Leviticus 20 8.2.3. Numbers 5 8.2.4. Numbers 35 8.2.5. Deuteronomy 21 8.2.6. Ezekiel 18 8.2.7. Ezekiel 22 8.2.8. Ezekiel 33 8.3. Language and cognition 8.3.1. The unification of profile-base-domain relationships 8.3.2. Prototypical scenario 8.3.3. The schematic meaning of ṭimmēˀ Piel 8.3.4. Language and history 9 Mental Processing Expressed by Genesis 34 and Its Triple Use of טמא ṭimmēˀ 9.1. Introduction 9.2. Genesis 34:1 9.2.1. The nominals in Genesis 34:1 9.2.2. The temporal relation in Genesis 34:1 9.2.3. The composite semantic structure of Genesis 34:1 9.2.4. The emergent picture of meaning in Genesis 34:1 9.3. Genesis 34:2 9.3.1. The nominals in Genesis 34:2 9.3.2. Correspondences between the nominals in Genesis 34:1-2 9.3.3. The temporal relations in Genesis 34:2 9.3.4. The composite semantic structure of Genesis 34:2 9.3.S. The emergent picture of meaning in Genesis 34:1-2 9.4. Genesis 34:3-4 9.4.1. The nominals in Genesis 34:3-4 9.4.2. The temporal relations in Genesis 34:3-4 9.4.3. The composite semantic structure of Genesis 34:3-4 9.4.4. The emergent picture of meaning in Genesis 34:1-4 9.5. Genesis 34:5 9.5.1. The nominals in Genesis 34:5 9.5.2. The atemporal relations in Genesis 34:5 9.5.3. The temporal relation in Genesis 34:5 9.5.4. The composite semantic structure of Genesis 34:5 9.5.5. The emergent picture of meaning in Genesis 34:5 9.6. Genesis 34:6-7 9.6.1. The nominals in Genesis 34:7a-b-c 9.6.2. Atemporal relations in Genesis 34:6-7a-b-c 9.6.3. The temporal relations in Genesis 34:7a-b-c 9.6.4. The nominals in Genesis 34:7d-e 9.6.5. The atemporal relations in Genesis 34:7d-e 9.6.6. The composite semantic structure of Genesis 34:7 9.6.7. The emergent picture of meaning in Genesis 34:5-7 9.7. Intermezzo I: Genesis 34:8-12 9.8. Genesis 34:13 9.8.1. The nominals in Genesis 34:13 9.8.2. Atemporal relations in Genesis 34:13 9.8.3. The temporal relations in Genesis 34:13 9.8.4. Correspondences in semantic substructures in Genesis 34:5, 7, and 13 9.9. Intermezzo II: Genesis 34:14-17 9.10. Intermezzo III: Genesis 34:18-24 9.11. Intermezzo IV: Genesis 34:25-29 9.12. Genesis 34:27 9.13. Intermezzo V: Genesis 34:30-31 9.14. The emergent picture of meaning in Genesis 34 10 Summary and Evaluation 10.1. Summary of the theory 10.2. Summary of the method of analysis and the analytical results 10.2.1. The crescent moon 10.2.2. The in-law family 10.2.3. The city gate 10.2.4. Differentiation and separation 10.3. Evaluation in terms of set aims Bibliography Index of Authors Index of Scripture