Putting the Pieces Together: Formalizing Units and Structures in the Biblical Languages

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Linguistic Theory in Hebrew and Greek Language Study

Stanley E. Porter

Introduction

The title of the conference from which this volume emerged is Putting the Pieces Together: Formalizing Units and Relations in the Biblical Languages. There is much implied in this title that merits further examination, much more in fact than one essay such as this can deliver. However, the conference title itself, and now the volume that has emerged, suggest a particular perspective on linguistic description, especially of what we might usually call syntax, that merits further explication at the outset, so as to help us to understand the nature of the linguistic enterprise, or at least the enterprise as it is conceived by the originators of the conference, even if not all of the contributors (although many if not most of the contributors probably accede to the major tenets that I will describe below). The purpose of this paper is to attempt to address the question of how linguistic theory is fundamental to the interpretation of Hebrew and Greek texts and how knowledge of such theory advances the study of the Bible in its several various derived enterprises, regardless of whether practitioners of such enterprises explicitly or even ostensibly realize this fact. In this paper, I will begin by examining various linguistic theories, especially those that subsume several syntactical theories, as an entrance point into the linguistic enterprise. I will then examine how such theories are or are not utilized in Hebrew or New Testament Greek studies. I will then examine some of the reasons for the state of the current discussion, focusing upon New Testament Greek.

Entering the Linguistic Enterprise by Means of Linguistic Theories

I suppose it is appropriate in a discussion of linguistics to begin by invoking a binary opposition. It is a commonplace within linguistics to distinguish between two major approaches to linguistic theory, which has been variously described but which is essentially a distinction between Noam Chomsky and the others, that is, those who do not follow Chomsky. This is referred to in various ways and has in a helpful way been developed by Robert Van Valin and Randy LaPolla as a difference between the syntactocentric and the communication-and-cognition perspectives.¹ Van Valin and LaPolla discuss a range of linguistic theories that subsume various syntactic theories, and this provides the point of initial discussion for this paper.

The syntactocentric perspective is attributed to Chomsky and his many followers and is characterized—whether in its earliest phrase-structure grammar or transformational grammar or later Government and Binding Theory/Principles and Parameters or minimalist program (with recursion as the minimal feature of language)²—by its being an autonomous cognitive faculty³ that results in human internal grammar that follows linguistic universals. Such linguistics investigates not language use (performance) but the speaker’s competence, and especially the psychological dimensions of language such as its acquisition, even if one is not concerned with psychological processes themselves. According to Van Valin and LaPolla, this approach to linguistics provides an analysis of grammar but not of language, if language is defined as what humans actually produce. It has spawned a number of further theories, according to Van Valin and LaPolla, such as Generalized Phrase Structure Grammar, Relational Grammar, and Categorial Grammar.

The communication-and-cognition perspective, according to Van Valin and LaPolla, essentially includes everything else, unified around the view that linguistics focuses upon the use of language either for communicative purposes or as a reflection of cognitive processing in relation to other cognitive systems, with grammar or syntax as relatively less significant to these greater concerns.⁴ As Van Valin and LaPolla admit, the linguistic theories that this perspective subsumes are numerous and diverse. They include Functional Grammar or grammars in their various types (including Continental, St. Petersburg, and West Coast or Oregon forms), Role and Reference Grammar, Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG), Tagmemics, Lexical-Functional Grammar, Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Construction Grammar, Autolexical Syntax, Word Grammar, Meaning-text theory, Cognitive Grammar, Prague School Dependency Grammar, and French functionalism, to list only what must be an incomplete list (and it is, as one can also think of Stratificational Grammar or Columbia School Linguistics, both Functionalist models), along with a number of what they call independent linguists.⁵ Whereas Chomsky dominates the first group, there is no single dominant figure in the second group, only a relatively unified yet widespread rejection of the syntactocentric perspective. However, Van Valin and LaPolla also admit that there is a continuum from communicative on the one hand and cognitive theories on the other end of the continuum of communication-and-cognition perspectives. On the communicative side is Michael Halliday’s SFG, which they characterize as perhaps the most radical discourse-pragmatic view, a ‘top-down’ analytic model which starts with discourse and works ‘down’ to lower levels of grammatical structure.⁶ On the cognitive side is Ronald Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar, which is reducible to three major components, semantics, phonology, and symbolic representation.⁷ Van Valin and LaPolla place the other theories in the middle of the continuum, singling out Role and Reference Grammar (Van Valin and LaPolla’s own theory) and Simon Dik’s (Continental) Functional Grammar for exemplary reference within this medial position.

This categorization may, however, require further refinement or refinements. For example, if we utilize Van Valin and LaPolla’s division, Construction Grammar, with its descriptive and non-transformational properties is closer to Langacker’s Cognitive Grammar than it is to the theories listed as standing in the middle with some of their functional tendencies. Further, Tagmemics has some features in common with Role and Reference Grammar, such as a rank scale or levels of representation, but it has arguably more in common with SFG, with not only a rank scale but what SFG would call levels or strata (a non-formal rank scale, in essence), a top-down approach, and a comprehensive and encompassing theory of context as well as structures. Being more aggressively critical, one might question entirely the divide along the lines of Chomsky and his universal grammar against all the rest, and instead place Chomsky and his major developers, whether positively or negatively, so long as they pursue a psychological or cognitive dimension, on the one side, with the other perspectives lumped together on the other. The result here would be that Chomsky is joined by (from the choices of Van Valin and LaPolla) Lexical-Functional Grammar, Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar, Construction Grammar, probably Autolexical Syntax, and, most noteworthily perhaps, Cognitive Grammar,⁸ forming a group that might be characterized as syntacto-cognitive-centric. This would leave, on the resulting cline, Role and Reference Grammar on the one extreme (closest to the syntacto-cognitive-centric models) with movement toward Word Grammar, various dependency grammars (Mel’cuk and Prague), Functional Grammars (Continental, Russian, US, and French), Tagmemics, and then SFG on the other, forming a relatively smaller and more focused yet still diverse group of functional theories.⁹ For that reason, if one were to explore these categorizations in more detail, one would no doubt wish to refine significantly this continuum as one places various theories along the several clines.

There are numerous lumpings and splittings in this categorization of theories by Van Valin and LaPolla. Nevertheless, as unsatisfactory as such a brief survey may be in its particular details, it has the virtue of providing a brief overview of the field of linguistic theory, especially in relation to theories of syntax (since all of the theories that they mention have syntactical theories of one sort or another within them). It is adequate enough at this point to set the stage for a discussion of linguistic study of Hebrew and the Greek of the New Testament, and more importantly questions about what exactly we are doing in such linguistic descriptions.

Linguistics and Ancient Hebrew and New Testament Greek Language Studies

At this stage in my argument, I wish to examine more closely how various linguistic models have been utilized in ancient Hebrew and New Testament Greek language studies. This is a large undertaking, one that I realize I am not as adequately equipped for as I might be (I am not a Hebraist). Nevertheless, as a linguist, I will attempt to categorize a large but far from inclusive number of works within each language into their appropriate categories, with some words of commentary and critique especially following the discussion of Greek.¹⁰

Hebrew Language Studies

The field of ancient Hebrew language studies has a much longer and more developed history than does the study of New Testament Greek, although it is still not nearly as diverse as the characterization of linguistics provided by Van Valin and LaPolla. The history of the study of ancient Hebrew is not as well-known as that of other languages but can be divided into two major periods, the Eastern Jewish and the Western non-Jewish study.¹¹ Eastern Jewish study of Hebrew goes back to at least the tenth century, patterned after the study of Arabic and undertaken for the sake of the study of the Hebrew Bible and other Jewish literature. Once the centers of Judaism shifted from the East to the West, in the late medieval period, study of the Hebrew language shifted to models developed in the West for Latin, so that by the sixteenth century the major Hebrew scholars were primarily non-Jewish, with some noteworthy exceptions (such as Baruch Spinoza), as study moved into the Enlightenment period. If one were to trace the course of the development of linguistics (apart from the study of Hebrew), one might well identify the rationalist period of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the comparative period of the nineteenth and very early twentieth century, and the modern linguistic period of the twentieth century beginning with Saussure. Modern study of ancient Hebrew can also be divided into three major periods coinciding with developments in Western intellectual thought as well as linguistics. The first is the rationalist period, when there was a tendency to see Hebrew in terms of categories of Western languages, extending from the eighteenth into the early nineteenth centuries. For example, at this stage many grammarians equated tense-form with absolute time.¹² The second period is the comparative philological period, coinciding with the rise of comparative philology in the wider study of languages, from the early eighteenth century until almost the middle of the twentieth century. Aspectual theories such as those by Heinrich Ewald and later S. R. Driver were first influenced by Arabic and then by discoveries of a number of other Northwest Semitic languages, then later by Akkadian and finally Ugaritic.¹³ The major grammar that reflects this period was by Wilhelm Gesenius, going through numerous editions.¹⁴ Later in that period, from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth centuries, study of Indo-European languages and developmental theories of Hebrew had a sizable influence, in some ways resulting in a move away from aspectual and back to temporal and modal theories of the Hebrew verbal system. In around 1940, the modern linguistic period of Hebrew study began, continuing to the present.

I note from this brief survey several trends within Hebrew language study. The first is that Hebrew language study is, in many ways, at least as old, if not older, than study of most other languages, because, at least in its early days before its demotion during the late medieval period, it was seen as essential for understanding the Hebrew Bible. At this stage, study of Hebrew, even if done by Jewish scholars, was comparative, as Arabic was often used as the basis for Hebrew description, based upon the Arabic intellectual tradition that preceded study of Hebrew. The second observation is that, once study of Hebrew moved to the West, the Western linguistic categories came to influence and then dominate the study of Hebrew, especially the influence of the comparative-historical method and developmental models. Although views of ancient Hebrew were more inclined to draw upon the metalanguage of other linguistic descriptions while appreciating the characteristics of Hebrew (e.g., in the work of Ewald), in later times Hebrew came to be described as simply one more of the languages within an emerging comparative-historical developmental typology, subject to the same categories of discussion. A third observation is that, despite the modern linguistic period of ancient Hebrew study beginning in the 1940s and coming fully to bear in the 1970s and subsequently, there is still much persistent work that utilizes earlier models, either rationalist or comparative-historical, so that much of the contemporary teaching and even study of ancient Hebrew might well be classified as following the patterns not of modern linguistic study but of traditional grammar (which will be explicated in more detail below when I discuss Greek, where the ongoing influence of traditional grammar is even stronger). The result is some grammars, especially beginning ones, continuing to utilize a metalanguage dependent upon easy equations of tense-form and time, lists of classifications of usage, and other features. The fourth observation, however, is that, nevertheless, the study of ancient Hebrew in relation to the Bible was in several ways far in advance of study of the Greek of the New Testament, as will be demonstrated below.

The linguistic study of ancient Hebrew is not as diverse as the categories suggested by Van Valin and LaPolla, but their categories are useful for characterization of Hebrew language studies.¹⁵ I will not focus upon work that primarily addresses questions of translation, even though there is some linguistic work that continues to be done in this area, and I will focus upon book-length rather than journal article treatments of the topic. I have identified six major organizational categories of Hebrew linguistic discussion. These include structuralism, syntactocentric perspectives, Tagmemics, Functional Grammar, Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), and Cognitive Linguistics. Some of the earliest linguistic work within ancient Hebrew studies was inspired by fundamental ideas within structuralism, first promoted in the early years of the twentieth century by Ferdinand de Saussure and the Prague School of linguistics. Structuralism as it is found in Hebrew studies draws upon such categories as emphasis, opposition, and syntax, semantics, and pragmatics as a coordinated system, and hence much of the early research was done by Continental European scholars, although the trend has continued among a broader range of scholars, with an increasing use of distributional studies playing a significant role in their findings. This structuralist work includes the publications of Takamitsu Muraoka on emphasis in Hebrew using a very general notion of emphasis,¹⁶ Frithiof Rundgren on Hebrew aspect using the structuralism of Saussure and various theories of opposition from the Prague School,¹⁷ Péter Kustár on Hebrew aspect,¹⁸ and Jacob Hoftijzer on the function and use of imperfect verb forms.¹⁹

This tendency to draw upon a relatively eclectic form of structuralist-inspired linguistics has continued in more recent Hebrew linguistic study as well.²⁰ Several good examples are the early work of Walter Gross on pendent or verbless constructions in ancient Hebrew followed by his later work in the semantics and pragmatics vein,²¹ Ernst Jenni’s study of the Hebrew preposition,²² Yoshinobu Endo using basic Saussurian descriptive structuralism to examine the Hebrew verb in the Joseph story,²³ Tal Goldfajn on establishing the temporal basis of the verbal forms using narrative,²⁴ Ziony Zevit on anterior constructions in Hebrew using very basic structuralist categories,²⁵ the early work of Cynthia Miller (now Miller-Naudé) on the representation of speech in Hebrew narrative, where she relies heavily upon distinctions between syntax, metapragmatics, and discourse pragmatics,²⁶ Adina Moshavi on the use of pragmatics (focus or topicalization), including markedness and word-order typology, in the study of the Hebrew finite clause,²⁷ Nicholas Lunn on variation in word order on the basis of pragmatics,²⁸ Miller’s former doctoral student John Cook on the Hebrew verbal system, where he tries to mediate between what he calls formalist/structuralist and functionalist/substantialist frameworks (he might also be placed below under discussion of functionalism),²⁹ Scott Callahan employing typological study of modality and the Hebrew infinitive absolute,³⁰ and Jan Joosten on the Hebrew verbal system using an explicitly Saussurian structuralism emphasizing langue/parole, paradigmatic/syntagmatic opposition, and semantics, all outlined in just short of two pages.³¹ Although successive scholars have continued to develop ideas within this basic structuralist framework, the influence of the work of these scholars has been more inspirational than theoretically directive, with few subsequent scholars specifically drawing upon the earlier frameworks proposed. Similarly, there have been some Hebrew linguists influenced by the German scholar Harald Weinrich,³² such as Alviero Niccacci,³³ but this work has not been influential in establishing continued research in what is more a philosophy of time than a linguistic framework. One can say that much of this structuralist linguistic examination of Hebrew is recognizably linguistic in that it draws upon the categories of thought developed by Saussure and the Prague School linguists and other structuralists. However, these various elements are often interpreted and conceptualized only very basically or suggestively (as in the work of Muraoka). This leaves many of these works standing on their own, positing categories that do not necessarily fit within the kinds of developed frameworks that are usually found within non-biblical linguistics and that Van Valin and LaPolla describe.

If we turn to the basic linguistic bifurcation of Van Valin and LaPolla, we examine first the syntactocentric perspective of Chomsky. Chomskyan linguistics was the single most significant force in linguistic thought during the last fifty or so years of the twentieth century, especially in North America, so it is not surprising that there has been some Chomskyan work in Hebrew linguistics. However, the surprise is how little Chomskyan work has been done in monograph form, even if there is more in the journal literature.³⁴ One such monograph that also uses computer technology to search databases is Janet Dyk’s study of the participle in Hebrew using X-bar theory from government and binding theory,³⁵ and a variety of moderately Chomskyan works by Robert Holmstedt. In three volumes, as well as many articles, Holmstedt consistently writes within the syntactocentric perspective of Chomsky. Holmstedt’s first major work, his doctoral dissertation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (under Miller) on the relative clause in Biblical Hebrew, was revised and finally published in 2016, in which he draws explicitly upon not only the Chomskyan minimalist program, but Chomsky’s fundamental belief in a universal grammar.³⁶ This work has provided the basis of Holmstedt’s later work, in particular grammatical handbooks on Ruth and especially Esther,³⁷ in which in the latter, he explicitly draws upon the minimalist principles and parameters (government and binding) textbook of Andrew Cairnie,³⁸ but also incorporates into the discussion other structuralist work, such as that of Cook on Hebrew verb structure (with whom he has also written an elementary Hebrew grammar).³⁹ Whereas Holmstedt’s monograph reflects the Chomskyan program, as do many if not most of his journal articles, the Chomskyan framework presented in the handbooks on Ruth and Esther is very basic, with many readers probably missing the significance of his attention to constituency, syntactic roles, and valency, which is very much concentrated upon phrase structure and syntactic and semantic roles, without reference to many of the other categories often found in such Chomskyan discussions.

If we shift to the communication-and-cognition perspective of Van Valin and LaPolla, we find that there has been much more linguistic research on the ancient Hebrew language. The first major influence by a recognizable school of linguistics, apart from the general structuralists categorized together and discussed above, was Tagmemics, developed by Kenneth Pike and later by Robert Longacre. No doubt due to Pike being a Christian (along with Longacre), he had a direct influence upon many biblical scholars. One of the earliest to explore linguistics in ancient Hebrew studies was the Australian scholar Francis Andersen. Andersen wrote two important early works, The Hebrew Verbless Clause in the Pentateuch and, in particular, The Sentence in Biblical Hebrew, both of which have had a significant impact upon Hebrew language study. Andersen’s Hebrew Verbless Clause claims to be what he calls holistic in approach, although it directly utilizes the syntagmeme from Tagmemics as the unit of analysis, and has prompted continuing discussion of the topic.⁴⁰ His exposition of Tagmemics in relation to Hebrew in The Sentence in Biblical Hebrew is a thorough and detailed theoretical exposition of this linguistic perspective, to the point that some, even those linguistically sympathetic to the approach, have criticized its abundance of theory and apparatus over clear exposition.⁴¹ Longacre, himself primarily a linguist as opposed to a biblical scholar, also made a contribution to the study of Hebrew (as well as Greek; see below), writing a tagmemic analysis of the Joseph story patterned after the discourse theory that he developed in his discourse grammar based upon his own version of Tagmemics.⁴² There have been several others who have used Tagmemics in their research into Hebrew linguistics. These include David Dawson’s approach to text-linguistics, using what he fashions as a much more straightforward and accessible form of especially Longacre’s Tagmemics but with attention to such foundational concepts as empiricism, patterning, closure, choice, notional and surface structure, particle, wave, and field, and, of course, tagmemes and syntagmemes, all recognizably familiar to those who use Tagmemics,⁴³ and Roy Heller’s arguable return to tagmemic complexity in his examination of clause function in narrative according to what he calls discourse constellations.⁴⁴ Tagmemics has not continued to generate much further work, even though it is a rigorous and comprehensive functional model. This may be because of the waning influence of Pike, and along with him of Longacre, its two greatest proponents in biblical studies, but it may also be because its complex apparatus demands much of its practitioners (it attempts to be a unified theory of knowledge, no small task). In any case, the notion of a stratal functional system that connects text to context is one that, nevertheless, has had enduring value in Hebrew and other language study.

At this point, I return to what might best be called various forms of Functional Grammar, whose various types I compile here in a single discussion due to a number of similarities.⁴⁵ There are several treatments of Hebrew that broadly draw upon general principles of Functional Grammar, by which is meant that they are concerned with describing how various features of Hebrew function within the language and hence within text to present and organize its information. For biblical scholars, one of the most important works that provides background to their functionalist work is by Knud Lambrecht,⁴⁶ although they draw on a variety of the significant features of various functional theories. Wolfgang Richter draws upon the major principles of structuralism, along with recognition of the importance of function, in arguably the first Hebrew grammar written using principles of modern linguistics.⁴⁷ Other general functionalist studies include works such as Eep Talstra and his text-linguistic study of 2 Kgs 3,⁴⁸ followed in his approach by his student François den Exter Blokland on principles of defining text-segmentation through syntactical analysis.⁴⁹ Geoffrey Khan examines Semitic syntax in Arabic, Biblical Hebrew, Aramaic (Biblical and Syriac), Akkadian, and Amharic (Ethiopian), in a study that combines traditional comparative-historical concerns with a rigorous but highly eclectic functionalist linguistic perspective.⁵⁰ E. J. Revell, who draws relatively lightly on pragmatics and sociolinguistics, examines participants and what he calls expressive usage (emphasis).⁵¹ Andreas Disse examines the notion of information structure in ancient Hebrew, utilizing a corpus-based approach to several books of the Hebrew Bible.⁵² Jean-Marc Heimerdinger’s study of topic, focus, and foreground in Hebrew narratives draws upon major categories of thought within functionalism, in his case in opposition to Tagmemics. Lénart de Regt examines participant reference and its rhetorical significance within a functionalist perspective.⁵³ Katsuomi Shimasaki writes on how word order and information structure function to create focus in ancient Hebrew.⁵⁴ Finally, Hélène Dallaire utilizes a functionalist approach to comparative grammar, with attention to social interaction, in her work on the syntax of volitives in Hebrew and Amarna Canaanite prose.⁵⁵ Functionalists drawing specifically upon the Continental Functional Grammar of Simon Dik,⁵⁶ whose work is recognized as the basis of one of the major functional models, include Michael Rosenbaum in his study of variation in word order within Hebrew, especially Isa 40–55, and N. Winther-Nielsen, who develops under the influence of Robert Longacre a functional discourse grammar of Joshua using rhetorical structure theory, a method for describing the organization of texts.⁵⁷ In some ways, this discussion of functionalism should precede Tagmemics, because it is broader in scope in the way that it has been applied to Hebrew. However, due to its more robust and continuing development and utilization, I have placed it after Tagmemics to represent its current status as a well-used, even if variably applied, framework.

A much more recent development within Hebrew studies, and arguably a suitable and perhaps even more refined functional model, has been the use of Systemic Functional Linguistics. SFL, or SFG as it is sometimes called, has already been mentioned and characterized by Van Valin and LaPolla as the most radical of the top-down discourse-pragmatic models. SFL is characterized by dissolving the boundary between langue and parole, emphasizing paradigmatic choice over syntagmatic structure, and seeing meaning as comprising several complex semiotic systems. Whereas it has been much more popular in New Testament Greek studies (see below), SFL has been recently introduced to Hebrew language study. The first apparent work to make widespread use of SFL in a book-length treatment of Hebrew linguistics was the handbook on Gen 1–11 by Barry Bandstra.⁵⁸ In the introduction to his handbook, he lays out a very clear approach to SFL, utilizing the three metafunctions in relation to mood (interpersonal), transitivity (experiential), and textuality (textual). Although he has not been directly influential on their use of SFL, several others have taken up the challenge of this linguistic perspective on Hebrew.⁵⁹ In the same year, a lengthy comparative study of the Hebrew verb (qatal/yiqtol) was published by Silviu Tatu, in which tense sequence was examined in Hebrew and Ugaritic poetry.⁶⁰ Colin Toffelmire has produced a discourse and register analysis of the prophet Joel, in which he explores the SFL categories of field, tenor, and mode, including cohesion, as a means of characterizing the context of situation, especially in relation to the new form criticism.⁶¹ Mary Conway draws upon a particular facet of SFL, appraisal theory, in her study of the book of Judges in order to examine the ideology of the book.⁶² Appraisal theory adds a further dimension to the tools of SFL by introducing more formalized means of evaluation within texts, and she applies this to how characters are presented within Judges. David Fuller provides a discourse analysis of the book of Habakkuk by linguistically comparing the organizational units within the first several chapters.⁶³ There are several problematic factors to consider in using SFL to study Hebrew, problems increasingly realized by those who have applied it. All the SFL proponents above have noted that one cannot simply take the categories of SFL, which were developed for English, and use them to describe Hebrew. Bandstra reconceptualizes the metafunctions, Conway introduces appropriate means of appraisal other than simply lexis, and Fuller addresses questions of syntactical configuration. This necessary reconceptualization constitutes one of the promises and challenges of SFL in Hebrew linguistics.

The last category of discussion is arguably the most fervent within recent Hebrew linguistic study, those who work within the cognitive linguistic perspective. Cognitive Linguistics is differentiated by Van Valin and LaPolla from the syntactocentric perspective of Chomsky primarily based upon his universal grammar. However, because of its origins and its mentalism, Cognitive Linguistics is arguably to be associated and categorized with Chomskyanism, with its typological orientation and cognitive commitment (see discussion below). However, for the sake of discussion, I will treat Cognitive Linguistics here, as the final perspective regarding Hebrew. Some scholars within biblical studies wish to associate cognitive and functionalist categories as forming what are characterized as Cognitive-Functional frameworks, influenced by the work of Robert Dooley and Stephen Levinsohn, and more of these are discussed under Greek linguistics below.⁶⁴ There are two major types of work to discuss under Cognitive Linguistics. The first type is exemplified by those who have drawn upon various theories of conceptual metaphor, whether that includes mental space theory, conceptual blending, or other developments, mostly based upon the work of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson.⁶⁵ There is an increasing number of studies pursuing the use of cognitive metaphor. These include Carl Martin Follingstad, who draws upon mental space theory to understand deictic viewpoint in analysis of the Hebrew particle ki, Sarah Dille on the mixing of biblical metaphors in a cognitive metaphor context with reference to Lakoff and Johnson’s metaphoric coherence in Deutero-Isaiah,⁶⁶ Albert Kamp on a cognitive linguistic approach to Jonah including conceptual space,⁶⁷ Philip King on metaphor, images, and schemas,⁶⁸ and Job Jindo on biblical metaphor within the poetic prophecy of Jer 1–24.⁶⁹ More general cognitive treatments include a variety of approaches that deal with cognition and how cognition is related to language and text, and so involve such things as cognitive processing. Several studies have recently appeared that utilize Cognitive Linguistics in study of Hebrew. These include Elizabeth Hayes on what she characterizes as the pragmatics of perception and cognition in Jeremiah,⁷⁰ Ellen van Wolde on the general nature of cognition and how it applies to interpretation of the Hebrew biblical text,⁷¹ Pierre Van Hecke, who integrates what he calls a functional and cognitive approach to Job 12–14, bringing together these two perspectives in a way that biblical scholars increasingly seem to be doing,⁷² Wendy Widder on the semantic field or domain of words for teach in Hebrew,⁷³ and Elizabeth Robar on the verb and the paragraph from a cognitive perspective.⁷⁴ Cognitive studies of Hebrew, like