Old Testament Scholarship and the Religious-Philosophical Sense of “Life” in Ordinary Language
PDF

Keywords

Old Testament Scholarship
Life
Philosophy of Translation
OT Translation
OT Theology

How to Cite

Gericke, J. (2023). Old Testament Scholarship and the Religious-Philosophical Sense of “Life” in Ordinary Language. Old Testament Essays, 36(1), 265–284. Retrieved from https://ote-journal.otwsa-otssa.org.za/index.php/journal/article/view/486

Abstract

The word “life” appears in a variety of contexts in Old Testament (OT) scholarship. Included are the use of non-technical senses from ordinary language and the associated folk-philosophical assumptions implicit therein. This article investigates whether and to what extent the recent history of interpretation reflects what the philosopher of religion Don Cupitt refers to as the “turn to life” in everyday speech. To test the hypothesis, samples of the relevant data are selected from the related second-order discourses of popular Bible translations and prominent theologies of the OT. The analysis shows strong correlations in terms of quantitative and qualitative conceptual-historical diachronic variability. Thus, it is concluded that the emergent quasi-religious sense of “life” in ordinary language is also a supervening folk-philosophical concept, concern and category in contemporary OT scholarship.

https://doi.org/10.17159/2312-3621/2023/v36n1a15

 

PDF

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).