{"title":"The Semantics of Purity in the Ancient Near East: Lexical Meaning as a Projection of Embodied Experience","authors":"Yitzhaq Feder","doi":"10.1163/15692124-12341258","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This article analyzes the primary terms for purity in Biblical Hebrew, Ugaritic, Sumerian, Akkadian and Hittite. Building on insights from cognitive linguistics and embodiment theory, this study develops the premise that semantic structure—even of seemingly abstract concepts—is grounded in real-world bodily experience. An examination of purity terms reveals that all of them can be related to a concrete sense pertaining to radiance (brilliance, brightness, shininess). The article then traces the semantic development of purity terms in distinct experiential contexts and shows how semantic analysis can elucidate the inner logic of fundamental religious concepts.","PeriodicalId":42129,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2014-05-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/15692124-12341258","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1163/15692124-12341258","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"HISTORY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3
Abstract
This article analyzes the primary terms for purity in Biblical Hebrew, Ugaritic, Sumerian, Akkadian and Hittite. Building on insights from cognitive linguistics and embodiment theory, this study develops the premise that semantic structure—even of seemingly abstract concepts—is grounded in real-world bodily experience. An examination of purity terms reveals that all of them can be related to a concrete sense pertaining to radiance (brilliance, brightness, shininess). The article then traces the semantic development of purity terms in distinct experiential contexts and shows how semantic analysis can elucidate the inner logic of fundamental religious concepts.
期刊介绍：
The Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions (JANER) focuses on the religions of the area commonly referred to as the Ancient Near East encompassing Egypt, Mesopotamia, Syria-Palestine, and Anatolia, as well as immediately adjacent areas under their cultural influence, from prehistoric times onward to the beginning of the common era. JANER thus explicitly aims to include not only the Biblical, Hellenistic and Roman world as part of Ancient Near Eastern civilization but also the impact of its religions on the western Mediterranean. JANER is the only scholarly journal specifically and exclusively addressing this range of topics.
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