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1 results

  • Chapter 10 - Bridging the Gap

  • from Part V - Texts
  • Edited by Esther Eidinow, University of Bristol, Armin W. Geertz, Aarhus Universitet, Denmark, John North, University College London
  • Book:
    Cognitive Approaches to Ancient Religious Experience
    Published online:
    28 July 2022
    Print publication:
    11 August 2022, pp 245-265

  • Summary

    In the chapter, I explore what may be gained by reading textual instantiations of feelings in light of current knowledge of their underlying emotional counterparts. The overall idea is to bridge the gap between ‘biology’ and ‘culture’ to examine how knowledge about basic biology may contribute to deepen the textual understanding. I seek to illustrate the theoretical discussion by providing a biological emotional reading of Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians chapter 6. I analyze Paul’s emphasis on baptism as moral cleansing in light of recent research in moral psychology and evolutionary biology on the Lady Macbeth complex. The argument is that there is an intrinsic relationship between the use of water and cognitive notions of cleanness, purity, dirt, moral filth, and impurity. These insights may be used to cast further light on Paul’s argument, thus illustrating the overall point that historians of religion, ancient historians, and classicists will benefit considerably by including knowledge from life sciences in the historical analyses.