Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The cognitive science of religion: a new alternative in biblical studies
- 2 Past minds: evolution, cognition, and biblical studies
- I Memory and the transmission of biblical traditions
- 3 How religions remember: memory theories in biblical studies and in the cognitive study of religion
- 4 Rethinking biblical transmission: insights from the cognitive neuroscience of memory
- 5 The interface of ritual and writing in the transmission of early Christian traditions
- 6 Computer modeling of cognitive processes in biblical studies: the primacy of urban Christianity as a test case
- 7 “I was El Shaddai, but now I'm Yahweh”: God names and the informational dynamics of biblical texts
- II Ritual and magic
- III Altruism, morality, and cooperation
- Bibliography
- Index of modern authors
- Subject index
7 - “I was El Shaddai, but now I'm Yahweh”: God names and the informational dynamics of biblical texts
from I - Memory and the transmission of biblical traditions
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The cognitive science of religion: a new alternative in biblical studies
- 2 Past minds: evolution, cognition, and biblical studies
- I Memory and the transmission of biblical traditions
- 3 How religions remember: memory theories in biblical studies and in the cognitive study of religion
- 4 Rethinking biblical transmission: insights from the cognitive neuroscience of memory
- 5 The interface of ritual and writing in the transmission of early Christian traditions
- 6 Computer modeling of cognitive processes in biblical studies: the primacy of urban Christianity as a test case
- 7 “I was El Shaddai, but now I'm Yahweh”: God names and the informational dynamics of biblical texts
- II Ritual and magic
- III Altruism, morality, and cooperation
- Bibliography
- Index of modern authors
- Subject index
Summary
THE INFORMATIONAL DYNAMICS OF JUDAIC TEXTS
This essay addresses the nature of information in Judaic texts, focusing particularly on the written names of God. I argue that these names are the main instrument through which information is organized in Judaic systems. Names are a difficult subject in the philosophy of language because they work differently than other features of language; they tend to capture information that is much more specific than other types of language. Names are bound to specific “experiences,” “baptisms” in space and time, referring to unique persons and places. When names are written they take on different properties than verbalized names because their physical form, not their sound, persists in time.
Cognitive science gives us some valuable insights on the nature of naming in human and other biological worlds. Instead of confining these insights to previous cognitive approaches to religion, my work instead seeks to integrate research in cognitive science and related fields into the study of religion in ways that can be relevant to humanist scholars of religion. This puts me in a difficult position, between rock and hard place.
Cognitive scientists of religion have a scientific agenda in their attempts to explain religion, though they often misrepresent just how much we know about the human mind/brain and the uncertainty at the heart of modern scientific projects. I am not suggesting that the uncertainty is a bad thing; quite the contrary, science is based on potential falsification and not being certain about its basic theories.
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- Information
- Mind, Morality and MagicCognitive Science Approaches in Biblical Studies, pp. 98 - 119Publisher: Acumen PublishingPrint publication year: 2013