Abstract
Words are more than vehicles for semantic meaning; they can also be regarded as ‘things’ with an ‘agency’ of their own. This happens when they are seen (iconic to legitimise) or heard (performative to inspire). According to S. Brent Plate, a key researcher on materiality (see reference list) ‘words are bodies, full of power’. Words, along with many ‘things’ (fetish, ritual, book, nature, place, etc.) mediate between the material known and the immaterial unknown; they make the invisible visible or experienceable. Birgit Meyer , the pioneer of the so-called material turn in the study of religion, says, words ‘effect the transcendental’ for the initiated. Not inherently potent but through ascribed or endowed meanings they in turn affect their creators. The so-called material turn in the study of religion has rediscovered that matter or ‘things’ really ‘matters.’ Words as powerful ‘things’ or agents are also attested to in Proverbs. When wisdom words are externalised (e.g. through ornaments, Pr 1:8–9), they legitimise their users; when they are internalised (in the heart or mind, Pr 2), they persuade almost like ‘powerful personae’ to follow the wise lifestyle; and when they are personified (Pr 8), they become the ‘mediatrix’ to the thought-world of wisdom, and its ultimate source, Yahweh.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The material turn in the study of religion (anthropology) emphasises the appreciation of materiality or ‘things’. It questions an exclusive mentalistic or inward approach in cognate disciplines, such as Religious Science, Theology and Old Testament and New Testament textual studies. It also stimulates a dialogue with other humaniora such as philosophy, psychology, literary studies, media studies and art history.
Highlights
Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. (Pr 16:24)Afrikaans church services are often constituted by way of a votum with the words of Psalm 121:1–2: ‘Ek slaan my oë op na die berge; waar sal my hulp vandaan kom? My hulp is van die Here wat hemel en aarde gemaak het’ (Ou Vertaling, 1953; the New International Version [NIV] translates: ‘I lift up my eyes to the hills – where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth’)
They move, assure and console their listeners, sending a hidden message of trust. If these same words are engraved on a tombstone of a beloved, they can be seen and even touched, with the same effects. They mediate a presence of the deceased through memory; they transcend the user to an unseen, invisible world
The wisdom words of Proverbs will be taken as an example to highlight illustratively their functions as they become ‘materialised’ in diverse ways
Summary
Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones. (Pr 16:24). Scholars note the resemblance with Deuteronomy 6:6–9, of attaching written teaching to the body, mentioned above already with the example of the mezuzah (Clifford 1999:51; Fox 2000:84).20 Loader (2014:149) argues that the materialisation of the two words by way of these two ‘things’ instead of metaphoric should be understood ‘...as reference to a real necklace inscribed with two specific words from sapiential teaching, namely kindness and faithfulness’ Their prime ‘agency’ function here is mnemonic (Fox 2000:84; Snijders 1984:36), a ‘prosthesis to memory’ (Loader 2014:150).
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