The Concept of Daylight as Sunlight in the OT

As already mentioned, the relationship between the concepts of daylight and sunlight was a matter of considerable discussion in twentieth-century scholarship, with some notable schol- ars (especially Sverre Aalen in TDOT) arguing that the ANE peoples, including the Israelites, conceived of daylight and sunlight as separate physical phenomena (see note #5 above). The American scholar W. David Reece has argued convincingly against this view, positing instead that the Israelites and all other ANE peoples "knew of no celestial light other than that

produced by the heavenly bodies" (Reece 1990:21). In the following discussion, I will use Reece and Aalen as the paradigmatic example for each opposing view, but the arguments pre- sented below can be universally applied. I contend that the sun is the most fundamental "cognitive reference point" (Lakoff 1987:45; see also Rosch 1975:532-547) for the lexeme רוא in BH, and I have shown in an earlier study how all the various uses and nuanced

meanings of the term can be generated from the physical object of the sun and its interaction with humans on the earth (Ruark 2017:25-99). Thus, I argue that a cognitive semantic analy- sis of the lexeme רוא in BH strongly affirms Reece and less strongly controverts Aalen.

Figure 1 – A Primitive Semantic Cloud of the Lexeme רוא in Biblical Hebrew

Figure 1 shows a semantic cloud of physical referents for the lexeme רוא in BH, with the area of each individual bubble proportional to the number of lexical attestations for each referent.50 _{With the greatest number of attestations, sunlight is the prototypical referent,}

standing at the very center of the semantic cloud. Moonlight and starlight are included with sunlight within the general category of celestial light. Firelight, lightning, the light from the

50. This data includes: 50 specific lexical references to sunlight (Gen 1:3[x2],4[x2],5,18, 44:3; Exo 10:23; Judg 16:2, 19:26; 1 Sam 14:36, 25:34,36, 29:10; 2 Sam 2:32, 17:22, 23:4; 2 Ki 7:9; Isa 5:30, 18:4, 26:19, 30:26[x3], 45:7, 60:19; Jer 31:35; Amos 8:9; Mic 2:1; Hab 3:4,11; Zeph 3:5; Zech 14:6; Psa 37:6, 139:11,12[x2]; Job 3:20, 24:14,16, 26:10, 28:11, 33:28,30, 37:21, 38:19; Prov 4:18[x2]; Neh 8:3); 8 specific lexical references to the light of the sun and moon together (Gen 1:14,15[x2],16[x3],17; Psa 136:7); 6 specific lexical references to

moonlight (Isa 13:10, 30:26, 60:19; Ezek 32:7[x2]); 1 specific lexical reference to the light of the moon and stars together (Jer 31:35); 2 specific lexical references to starlight (Isa 13:10; Psa 148:3); and 5 specific lexical references to celestial light as a general category (Jer 4:23; Ezek 32:8[x2]; Psa 56:14; Job 33:30).

creature Leviathan, and divine light are other categories of light in the physical world (within the conceptual frame proffered by the OT text). Some lexical attestations refer to light as a general material substance without specifying any particular physical object as a referent, and some attestations are unclear concerning the specific referent in view. Finally, the concepts "light of the face" and "light of the eyes" do not refer to the physical substance light but to different phenomena, as will be discussed in detail later in the dissertation (see section 2.2.1b).

The overall coherence of three different prototype effects (i.e., "asymmetries within categories and gradations away from a best example," Lakoff 1987:59; see also Evans 2012:3) exhibited by the lexical data weighs overwhelmingly, if not incontrovertibly, in favor of Reece's argument that daylight and sunlight are one and the same phenomenon in the an- cient Israelite conceptual world. As illustrated in Figure 1, the imbalance of frequency of ref- erential meaning strongly favors sunlight as the most prototypical referent for the lexeme רוא. Standing alone, however, this argument is circular, because the classification of sunlight depicted in the graph rests on the presupposition that there is no such concept as disambiguat- ed daylight in the ancient Israelite cognitive environment. Yet, if one does not accept this presupposition a priori and attempts to classify precisely the attestations of the lexeme רוא which refer to celestial light, it then becomes extremely difficult to determine whether the term רוא refers to sunlight or daylight. In many instances, the unmarked noun רוֹא in BH could contextually refer either to sunlight or daylight. Thus, the referential data is unclear simply standing on its own.

But this is not the end of the matter, because in either case one can still identify the lexical references to celestial light as opposed to other kinds of light. The sheer volume of these references compared to others demonstrates that celestial light is the most prototypical category, even if sunlight and daylight cannot be immediately distinguished as physical refer- ents.51 _{Thus, while an analysis of the lexical data according to referential frequency does not}

prove Reece's argument on the first pass, it identifies celestial light as both a useful category

51. The argument for celestial light as the most prototypical category of light in BH is more complex than I have articulated here, but the overwhelming imbalance of referential

attestations is the most compelling factor. For the full linguistic argument, see Ruark 2017:14-42.

and the prototypical category of light. I will return to this discussion of the prototype effect of referential frequency, but for now I will set it aside in order to examine other data. Mean- while, the fact that one cannot readily distinguish between sunlight and a disambiguated day- light in the referential data is a significant point of anecdotal evidence in favor of Reece's view, although it does not contradict Aalen.

Another prototype effect evinced in the lexical data is that of markedness, based on the theoretical proposition that "simplicity of cognition is reflected in simplicity of form" (Lakoff 1987:60). Those attestations in the OT where the lexeme רוא refers to the light of the moon and/or stars are always specified in the text, either from the context or with an identify- ing pronominal suffix. Sunlight is never specified as such in the OT, which is one of the rea- sons for the conceptual confusion regarding daylight and sunlight in the first place. It is ex- tremely unlikely that these linguistic phenomena are the result of mere chance due to the limited scope of a fixed corpus. First, these trends are true for the entire OT and not mere pockets of data; and secondly, the concepts involved in the category of celestial light are so primitive in human experience that it seems nearly impossible that a corpus as vast as the OT would consistently present such a large "exception to the rule", so to speak. The linguistic evidence is internally coherent and completely consistent. Therefore, the imbalance of lin- guistic markedness weighs on the side of sunlight as a more prototypical category of celestial light than moonlight and starlight, because it is always symbolized linguistically by the sim- pler form.

But there is yet more evidence here to be examined. The category of celestial light exhibits patterns of markedness not only in regard to its referential source but also in regard to time. In another study, I have shown how "the most prototypical and unmarked sense of the noun רוֹא is sunlight, and BH utilizes more specific terminology when speaking about ce- lestial light in reference to times when the sun is not visible" (Ruark 2017:51, emphasis added).52 _{This fact is much more problematic for Aalen's view. If daylight is disambiguated}

from sunlight, and if disambiguated daylight is the most prototypical sense of the most proto- typical term for light in BH (i.e. רוֹא) as Aalen would affirm, then this specific pattern of tem- poral markedness should be exactly the opposite according to the theory of embodied cogni-

tion. Thus, on both counts, the prototype effect of markedness supports Reece's view and does not support Aalen's view.

A third prototype effect of collocation shown by the lexical data also completely co- heres with Reece's argument and does not cohere at all with Aalen's argument. I again cite my earlier study:

When describing the actual happenings of the sky at the beginning of a day, BH utilizes two specific subject-verb constructions, ר ַח ַשׁ ה ָל ָע ("the dawn came up") and שׁ ֶמ ֶשׁ ַה ח ַר ָז ("the sun rose"). These constructions are both mutually exclusive in their use in the OT: the verb ח ַר ָז never takes the noun ר ַח ַשׁ as its subject; and the verb ה ָל ָע never takes the noun שׁ ֶמ ֶשׁ as its subject. If the ancient Israelites considered sunlight and daylight as separate physical phenomena – such that רוֹא (i.e. in this view daylight, not sunlight) is visible dur- ing the morning and evening even when the sun is not – then one would expect the term רוֹא to collocate with the verb ה ָל ָע, thus following the trajectory of the noun ר ַח ַשׁ rather than שׁ ֶמ ֶשׁ. However, the exact opposite is true! The verb ח ַר ָז takes the noun רוֹא as its subject twice in the OT (Isa 58:10; Psa 112:4, either directly or by apposition); but the verb ה ָל ָע never takes the noun רוֹא as its subject in BH (Ruark 2017:40).

In my view, even though the amount of data is relatively small––both in regard to marked- ness and collocation––there is a compelling difference in the qualitative value of the coher- ence with each of the opposing arguments. Reece's view does not simply offer fewer prob- lems with overall coherency than Aalen's view. Rather, with these last two prototype effects, the linguistic data that is actually available completely coheres with Reece's argument and does not cohere at all with Aalen's argument. Aalen's argument is theoretically plausible, but the evidence of prototype effects in the data does not support it. Reece's argument is also theoretically plausible, and all the evidence of prototype effects supports it.

Now, returning to the linguistic data concerning referential frequency, the qualitative value of the coherence is not as strong as with the data concerning markedness and colloca- tion, but very nearly. There are some passages where Aalen's view does appear (on the sur- face, at least) to offer greater coherence than Reece's view, most notably Gen 1:3-5; but Aalen also mentions Job 31:26 and 37:21, Isa 18:4, and Hab 3:4 (Aalen 1974:151-152). While this latter text could be understood in such as way as to support Aalen's view, I argue that the noun רוֹא here simply refers to sunlight, which supports Reece's view instead; the same is true

for Job 31:26 and 37:21 as well as Isa 18:4 (Ruark 2017:32,67-68,74-75).53 _{The Genesis 1}

text is more intransigent, yet again I argue that the linguistic evidence, when considered care- fully, demonstrates that Aalen's view does not provide a more coherent sense of the Genesis 1 narrative as a whole.

Aalen's view coheres better with the events described in Day One and not as well with the events described in Day Four. If the light of Day One is disambiguated daylight (as per Aalen's view) that distinguishes day from night and is the referent for the noun רוֹא, then a co- herency problem is created on Day Four when the text explicitly affirms that the celestial lu- minaries (i.e., the sun and moon) separate both day from night (v.14) and light from darkness (v.18). The definiteness of the nouns רוֹא and ךְ ֶשֹׁח (darkness) in v.18 is especially problemat- ic. Semantically speaking, the most coherent function of the status determinatus of the nouns רוֹא and ךְ ֶשֹׁח in v.18 is the same as earlier in the narrative, i.e., to refer to the "light" and "darkness" that were previously mentioned in vv.2-3. If רוֹא refers to a disambiguated day- light in v.18 (which, in this view, is the physical phenomenon that distinguishes day from night in the ancient Israelite conceptual world, as affirmed in Day One), then in what sense can it be understood that the sun and/or moon distinguish that disambiguated daylight from darkness? This creates a logical problem internal to the text itself, because in Aalen's view, the disambiguated daylight reflexively distinguishes itself from darkness; the sun and moon are merely accessories. This logical problem might be solved semantically by affirming that the status determinatus of the terms רוֹא and ךְ ֶשֹׁח in v.18 functions differently than earlier in the narrative, but in my opinion this stretches credible plausibility too far given the context. Thus, the text's internal logical problem lacks a plausible solution (as of yet, at any rate).

Reece's view, on the other hand, coheres better with the events of Day Four and not as well with the events of Day One. In this case, there is also a potential semantic problem, but not necessarily so. If the unspecified and unmarked noun רוֹא consistently refers to sunlight in the OT (as I have argued previously), then there need be no semantic conflict. One can un- derstand the noun רוֹא as referring to sunlight throughout the entire narrative, and then solve the problem of logical coherence by appealing to literary genre (i.e., the story is purposefully incoherent for some authorial purpose). Another option within Reece's view is to understand

the noun רוֹא as referring to theophanic light in Day One (with operation similar to daylight), and then solve the problem of logical coherence by appealing to theological metaphysics (i.e., God has the power to do anything!).54 _{Based on the linguistic data, the former option is com-}

pletely coherent semantically. The latter option is not incoherent, but it requires an assumed change of referent for the noun רוֹא in v.18 and/or change of function of the status determina-

tus for רוֹא and ךְ ֶשֹׁח in v.18. This is similar to the problem of logical coherency in Aalen's

view, but not as severe.55

Both views contain a problem with logical coherency that must be solved in some manner external to the text, but I argue that both options within Reece's view are more plausi- ble than Aalen's view in terms of the narrative's own internal consistency and coherence. Thus, I conclude that Aalen's view does not provide a more coherent sense of referential meaning for the term רוא in Genesis 1 or any other OT passage. In addition to the convincing arguments that Reece himself has already presented (Reece 1990:21-64), the application of the theory of embodied cognition to the linguistic data weighs conclusively on the side of Re- ece's view. Therefore, this dissertation accepts as a presuppositional premise that daylight and sunlight are one and the same phenomenon both in the ancient Israelite conceptual world and in the OT text itself (with the possible exception of Gen 1:3-5).