Author:

Keywords:

Arts & Humanities, Religion, GOD, 2204 Religion and Religious Studies, Religions & Theology, 5004 Religious studies

Abstract:

There is a cluster of metaphors that is constitutive of Job's description of his situation, but that has not been researched systematically, viz. boundary metaphors. The present contribution uses cognitive linguistic insights to uncover and explain several metaphors that use the concepts containment and boundary in the Book of Job in order to speak about the relationship between God and Job. The conceptual metaphors enmity is breaking a boundary and enmity is setting an unwanted external boundary are used in the same literary contexts and they are expanded with the conceptualization of protection as upholding a boundary and being ill as being delocalized. The correlation between the above-mentioned metaphors as well as others is significant and helps to remedy the persistent assumption that Job's images are incoherent. These metaphors are furthermore based on the two fundamental elements of human spatial experience, viz. location and motion.