Sensory language and the divine-human relationship in the TENAK [i.e. Tanakh]

• Main Author: Humphrey, Francis
• Other Authors: Runnalls, Donna R. (advisor)
• Format: Others
• Language: en
• Published: McGill University 1994
• Subjects: Metaphor in the Bible
• Online Access: http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=28782

The five exteroceptive senses are used extensively as metaphors for describing the divine-human relationship in the Old Testament. The thesis seeks to explore the significance of sensory language for understanding the TENAK's perspectives on the relationship between God and mortals. A phenomenology of the senses is sketched in the first chapter drawing upon the works of Merleau-Ponty, Straus, Leder, Howes and Classen. This leads the author to delineate the "rubrics" (salient features) of the Senses. === The rubrics are applied to individual texts which use sensory language to see whether they serve as a useful tool for exegesis. Tables are presented which contain lexical data on sensory language used to describe God's knowledge of humans (chapter two) and humanity's knowledge of God (chapter three). Differences in the sensory language describing the two directions of knowledge are noted and commented upon. === The thesis thus looks at the sensory language in the TENAK at both a micro-level (individual texts) and a macro-level (over-all patterns of sensory language). It is argued that the rubrics serve as a positive tool of exegesis and that the patterns detected are of significance in understanding certain basic perspectives of the TENAK'S view of the relationship between the deity and mortals.