CONCEPTUAL BLENDING AS AN INTEGRATIVE APPROACH TO METAPHOR AND ICONOGRAPHY: THE COMPLEX DIVINE WARRIOR IMAGERY IN JOSH 10:10-11 AS CASE STUDY

Recent trends in biblical exegesis found inspiration in ANE iconography to explain biblical figurative language in a more adequate way. Methodological questions concerning the relation between text and image were mainly studied from the perspective of art history (Keel 1984; 1992), focusing on the reconstruction of ancient Israelite religion (Keel & Uehlinger 1992; Schroer 2005-2011). The question how ANE iconography is to be conceptually related to figurative language in the Hebrew Bible is therefore unresolved. This study, presented at the SBL Annual Meeting in San Francisco during the ‘ ‘Iconography & Hebrew Bible session’, argues that biblical textual imagery and ANE iconographic image should be related on the conceptual/ cognitive level. Using Josh 10:10-11MT as Case Study, it will be explored how Blending Theory – a relatively recent approach to metaphor in Cognitive Linguistics – may help to relate complex biblical imagery to ANE iconographic images.status: publishe