New item in the Archive for Religion and Cognition:


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Author(s): Gabriel Levy
Title: The Biblical polemic against divination in light of the domestication of
folk psychology
Category: book
Length: 30
Keywords: Literacy; Relevance; RT; Davidson; Writing; Language; Hebrew Bible;
Prophecy

Abstract: This paper proposes that the polemic against divination in the Hebrew
Bible should be understood in the context of the invention of writing. The
polemic was a result of reflection on folk psychology made possible by robust
literacy. The first part of this paper presents some background about the
production of scrolls and the effects of literacy. I then use the communication
theories of Wilson, Sperber, and Davidson to generate five communicative
principles in the domain of folk psychology, which I argue change in the context
of ‘advanced’ literacy. The effects of writing on the communicative
principles are understood in terms of the differences between divination and
prophecy. I argue for a new form of Biblical criticism that I term cognitive
criticism.

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