Perception of wisdom in biblical metaphors by post-atheistic Russian studying youth

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Introduction. Religion is the basis for the worldview system and lays down value foundations in the formation of personality. In this regard, UNESCO is taking the initiative to unambiguously define common cultural and religious values at the international level. Wisdom is the value-semantic basis connecting cultural and religious groups. The methodological approach relies on a biblical understanding of wisdom. The aim is to reconstruct conceptual metaphors of biblical wisdom and correlate them with the students’ modern understanding. Materials and methods. Based on the deductive method of cognitive linguistics, the structure of the biblical concept of "wisdom" was analyzed and the correlative model was built. Metaphors obtained at the first stage of the corpus study were offered to the students to assess their significance. Religious identification, intensity of faith, and the attractiveness of wisdom as a personal characteristic were also studied. 214 students of Tyumen State University and Tyumen State Medical University participated in the research. Data was collected online. Statistical processing took place in the Statistica 10.0 program with the calculation of the Pearson rank correlation coefficient. Results. The theoretical study shows that the concept of "wisdom" has a strict frame, expressed in six metaphorical images: wealth, human virtue, modesty, gift from above, knowledge, and happiness. The main distinguishing feature of understanding wisdom in the Bible is its sacralization. An empirical study found that more than 60% of youth have conscious religious identification and practice traditional religions (47% profess Christianity; 33% are atheists). Wisdom is understood through the metaphor "knowledge." Unlike biblical understanding, this connotation lacks sacrality and mystery. Wisdom is associated with life experience therefore its formation is possible. The value of wisdom as a characteristic of personality and the desire to acquire it increases with the intensity of faith (religiosity) of young people (r = 0.72). Conclusion. The study of religious texts of the Bible is not carried out by the system of secondary and higher education in the Russian Federation therefore the influence of biblical images is preserved through indirect sources. Wisdom as a characteristic of personality is attractive for most of the younger generation, but the meaning of the concept is greatly diffused among representatives of different religious denominations and simplified. UNESCO initiatives involve increasing the importance of religious and cultural content in modern education. This work was done to achieve better understanding between representatives of different religious views.