Original Research - Special Collection: Historical Thought and Source Interpretation

The journey of Jephthah’s daughter: On spatial cognition, body and language in Judges 11:37

Adriaan Lamprecht
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies | Vol 77, No 1 | a6888 | DOI: https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v77i1.6888 | © 2021 Adriaan Lamprecht | This work is licensed under CC Attribution 4.0
Submitted: 02 June 2021 | Published: 21 September 2021

About the author(s)

Adriaan Lamprecht, Department of Ancient Languages and Text Studies, Faculty of Theology, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa

Abstract

The traditional literal interpretation of the text in Judges 11:37 shows exceptional variation in topographic depiction. The literal interpretation of Driver, published in Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, is an example. From a linguistic perspective, no attention was paid whatsoever to the relation of interiority between an objective body and an objective space. This article proposes a cognitive semantic perspective and argues that the motion-path verb ירד (yrd) in Judges 11:37 carries a metaphorical meaning, and the linguistic processing, that is, the metaphorical mapping of the image schematic structure of CHANGE (up-down) as the source domain onto that of BEHAVIOUR as the target domain, involving activation of cultural spatial and bodily systems. With this background in mind, Judges 11:37 represents a new understanding for similar UP-DOWN image schemas applied in the Hebrew Bible.

Contribution: This article contributes to the understanding of the apparent ‘inexact’ sense of the use of ירד (yrd) in Judges 11:37.


Keywords

Judges 11:37; Jephthah’s daughter; conceptual metaphor; spatial cognition; Biblical Hebrew; ירד (yrd)

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Crossref Citations

1. Unipolar Conceptual Metaphors in Biblical Hebrew
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