The Case of the Missing Fish: Perception, Thought, and the Zoological/Physical Structure of the World in Ancient Israel

Abstract

ABSTRACT Israelite authors who mentioned land, aerial, and aquatic animals in texts mentally organized the world into three realms: the water and its animals, the land and its animals, and the air and its animals. Israelite authors who mentioned only land and aerial animals in texts mentally organized the world into two realms: the water and its animals, and the terrestrial realm (the land/air complex) and its animals. For some authors, this bipartite way of mentally organizing the world placed terrestrial animals (i.e., land and aerial animals) in the foreground of their minds and aquatic animals in the background, leading them to mention the former but not the latter. For other authors, this bipartite way of mentally organizing the world highlighted certain differences between terrestrial animals and aquatic animals, leading them to mention the former but not the latter.