Shadows in the New Testament
Cognitive Approaches to Early Christian Literature
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jch.35292Keywords:
Shadows, Cognitive Science of Religion, early Christian literature, New TestamentAbstract
This article treats the roughly half dozen instances of shadows in the Christian New Testament using evolutionary-cognitive approaches and understandings. This literary-historical data set generally conforms to predictions from cognitive science in two ways. First, shadows stimulate cognitive interest due to their evolutionary ties to predation and humans as both prey species and hunter. Second, shadows fortify the status of supernatural agents due to shadows’ uncertain and shifting boundaries, which lend themselves to agency attribution. Additional discussion theorizes shadows as a type of object particularly related to religious beliefs, due to shadows’ particular set of characteristics that differ from standard folk ontologies. This unique typology is shared with certain other objects likewise possessing outsize presence in religious history such as clouds, flame, and smoke.
References
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Bullock, Merry, Rochel Gelman and Renée Baillargen. 1982. “The Development of Causal Reasoning”. In The Developmental Psychology of Time, ed. William J. Friedman, 209–254. New York: Academic Press.
Casati, Roberto. 2008. “The Copycat Solution to the Shadow Correspondence Problem”. Perception 37(4): 495–503. https://doi.org/10.1068/p5588
Casati, Roberto, and Marco Bertamini. 2009. “False Beliefs and Naïve Beliefs: They can be good for you”, Response to Ryan T. McKay and Daniel Dennett, “The Evolution of Misbelief”. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32: 493–561. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X09991178
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Daniélou, Jean. 1960. From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the Biblical Typology of the Fathers. London: Burns & Oates.
Dein, Simon, and Roland Littlewood. 2011. “Religion and Psychosis: A Common Evolutionary Trajectory?” Transcultural Psychiatry 48(3): 318–35. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363461511402723
Dunbar, Robin I. 2016. “The Social Brain Hypothesis and Human Evolution”. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.44
Fauconnier, Gilles, and Mark Turner. 2002. The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities. New York: Basic Books. https://doi.org/10.1086/378014
Frazer, James George. 1994 [1890]. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gergely, György, and Gergely Csibra. 2003. “Teleological Reasoning in Infancy: The Naïve Theory of Rational Action”. Trends in Cognitive Science 7 (July): 287–92. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00128-1
Gergely, György, Zoltán Nádasdy, Gergely Csibra and Szilvia Bíró. 1995. “Taking the Intentional Stance at 12 Months of Age”. Cognition 56(2): 165–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(95)00661-H
Gerhart, Mary, and Allan Melvin Russell. 2001. New Maps for Old: Explorations in Science and Religion. New York: Bloomsbury. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0360966900010410
Guthrie, Stewart Elliot. 1993. Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Guthrie, Stewart Elliot. 1996. “Religion: What Is It?” Journal for the Social Scientific Study of Religion 35(4): 412–19. https://doi.org/10.2307/1386417
Hufford, D. J. 2005. “Sleep Paralysis as Spiritual Experience”. Transcultural Psychiatry 42: 11–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363461505050709
Hughes, Aaron W. 2012. Abrahamic Religions: On Uses and Abuses of History. New York: Oxford University Press.
Laurendeau, M., and A. Pinard. 1962. Causal Thinking in the Child. New York: International Universities Press.
Leeming, David A., Kathryn Madden and Stanton Marlan, eds. 2010. Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. New York: Springer.
Lewis-Williams, David. 2010. Conceiving God: The Cognitive Origin and Evolution of Religion. London: Thames & Hudson. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003598x00067661
Luomanen, Petri. 2011. “Cognitive Science in Biblical Studies: An Overview”. In Collegium Biblicum Årsskrift: Kogntionsforskning og eksegese, eds. Knud Jeppesen and Kasper Bro Larsen, 15–32. Denmark: Collegium Biblicum.
Luomanen, Petri, Ilkka Pyysiäinen and Risto Uro. 2007. “Introduction: Social and Cognitive Perspectives in the Study of Christian Origins and Early Judaism”. In Explaining Christian Origins and Early Judaism: Contributions from Cognitive and Social Science, eds. Petri Luomanen, Ilkka Pyysiäinen and Risto Uro, 27–33. Leiden and Boston: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1177/1046107909106760
Murray, M. J., and Andrew Goldberg. 2009. “Evolutionary Accounts of Religion: Explaining and Explaining Away”. In The Believing Primate: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Reflections on the Origin of Religion, eds. J. Schloss and M. J. Murray, 44–75. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199557028.003.0010
Nemeroff, Carol, and Paul Rozin. 1994. “The Contagion Concept in Adult Thinking in the United States: Transmission of Germs and of Interpersonal Influence”. Ethos 22(2): 158–86. https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.1994.22.2.02a00020
Newberg, Andrew, Eugene D’Aquili and Vince Rause. 2008. Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. New York: Ballantine.
Piaget, Jean. 1930. The Child’s Conception of Physical Causality. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company.
Pyysiäinen, Ilkka. 2004. Magic, Miracles, and Religion: A Scientist’s Perspective. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. https://doi.org/10.1177/000842980503400328
Rosengren, Karl S., Carl N. Johnson and Paul L. Harris, eds. 2000. Imagining the Impossible: Magical, Scientific, and Religious Thinking in Children. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511571381
Sørensen, Jesper. 2007. A Cognitive Theory of Magic. Plymouth: AltaMira Press.
Spelke, Elizabeth S. 1990. “Principles of Object Perception”. Cognitive Science 14(1): 29–56. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog1401_3
Spelke, Elizabeth S., and Katherine D. Kinzler. 2007. “Core Knowledge”. Developmental Science 10(1): 89–96. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00569.x
Spencer, Herbert. 1876–1896. Principles of Sociology. New York: Appleton.
Stoichita, Victor I. 1997. A Short History of the Shadow. London: Reaktion.
Stroumsa, Guy G. 2015. The Making of Abrahamic Religions in Late Antiquity. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/islam-2017-0019
Tylor, Edward Burnett. 1871. Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art, and Custom. London: Murray. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511705953.009
Von Franz, Marie-Luise. 1995 [1974]. Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales. Boston, MA: Shambhala.
Von Thaden, Robert H., Jr. 2012. Sex, Christ, and Embodied Cognition: Paul’s Wisdom for Corinth. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1qv5r1z
Wachtel, Edward. 1993. “The First Picture Show: Cinematic Aspects of Cave Art”. Leonardo 26(2): 135–40. https://doi.org/10.2307/1575898
Warner, Marina. 2006. Phantasmagoria: Spirit Visions, Metaphors, and Media into the Twenty-first Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5922.2007.00693_7.x
Whitehouse, Harvey. 2004. Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of Religious Transmission. London: Alta Mira.
Wilson, Robert A., and Frank Keil. 1998. “The Shadows and Shallows of Explanation”. Minds and Machines 8(1): 137–59. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008259020140
Yoshida, M. 1962. “The Effect of Light on the Shadow Reaction of the Sea Urchin, Diadema Setosum (LESKE)”. Journal of Experimental Biology 39: 589–602.
Atran, Scott. 2002. In Gods We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Atran, Scott, and Jeremy Ginges. 2012. “Religious and Sacred Imperatives in Human Conflict”. Science 336.6083 (May): 855–57. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1216902
Atran, Scott, and Ara Norenzayan. 2004. “Religion’s Evolutionary Landscape: Counterintuition, Commitment, Compassion, Communion”. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 27: 713–30. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X04000172
Barrett, Justin L. 2008. “Coding and Quantifying Counterintuitiveness in Religious Concepts: Theoretical and Methodological Reflections”. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 20: 308–338. https://doi.org/10.1163/157006808X371806
Betz, Hans Dieter. 1986. The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation, Including the Demotic Spells, Volume 1. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02701312
Bloom, Paul. 2004. Descartes’ Baby: How the Science of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human. New York: Basic Books. https://doi.org/10.1056/nejm200409233511326
Bloom, Paul. 2012. “Religion, Morality, Evolution”. Annual Review of Psychology 63: 179–99. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-120710-100334
Boyer, Pascal. 1990. Tradition as Truth and Communication: A Cognitive Description of Traditional Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Boyer, Pascal. 1994. The Naturalness of Religious Ideas: A Cognitive Theory of Religion. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Boyer, Pascal. 1995. “Causal Understandings in Cultural Representations: Cognitive Constraints on Inferences from Cultural Input”. In Causal cognition: A Multidisciplinary Debate, eds. D. Sperber, D. Premack and A. J. Premack, 615–44. Oxford: Clarendon Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198524021.003.0020
Boyer, Pascal. 2001. Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York: Basic Books.
Boyer, Pascal, and Charles Ramble. 2001. “Cognitive Templates for Religious Concepts: Cross-Cultural Evidence for Recall of Counter-Intuitive Representations”. Cognitive Science 25: 535–64. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog2504_2
Bullock, Merry, Rochel Gelman and Renée Baillargen. 1982. “The Development of Causal Reasoning”. In The Developmental Psychology of Time, ed. William J. Friedman, 209–254. New York: Academic Press.
Casati, Roberto. 2008. “The Copycat Solution to the Shadow Correspondence Problem”. Perception 37(4): 495–503. https://doi.org/10.1068/p5588
Casati, Roberto, and Marco Bertamini. 2009. “False Beliefs and Naïve Beliefs: They can be good for you”, Response to Ryan T. McKay and Daniel Dennett, “The Evolution of Misbelief”. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 32: 493–561. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X09991178
Cohen, Leslie B., and Cara H. Cashon. 2007. “Infant Cognition”. In Handbook of Child Psychology: vol. 2, Cognition, Perception, and Language, W. Damon and R. M. Lerner (Series eds) D. Kuhn and R. Siegler (vol. eds), 226-99. New York: Wiley.
Czachesz, István. 2008. “The Promise of the Cognitive Science of Religion for Biblical Studies”. CSSR Bulletin 37(4): 102–105.
Czachesz, István. 2011. “Explaining Magic: Earliest Christianity as a Test Case”. In Past Minds: Studies in Cognitive Historiography, eds. Luther H. Martin and Jesper Sørensen, 141–65. London: Equinox Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315478371-11
Czachesz, István. 2017. Cognitive Science and the New Testament: A New Approach to Early Christian Research. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1558/jch.34145
Czachesz, István, and Risto Uro. 2013. “The Cognitive Science of Religion: A New Alternative in Biblical Studies”. In Mind, Morality and Magic: Cognitive Science Approaches in Biblical Studies, eds. István Czachesz and Risto Uro, 1–14. Durham: Acumen. https://doi.org/10.1558/jch.33931
Daniélou, Jean. 1960. From Shadows to Reality: Studies in the Biblical Typology of the Fathers. London: Burns & Oates.
Dein, Simon, and Roland Littlewood. 2011. “Religion and Psychosis: A Common Evolutionary Trajectory?” Transcultural Psychiatry 48(3): 318–35. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363461511402723
Dunbar, Robin I. 2016. “The Social Brain Hypothesis and Human Evolution”. Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.44
Fauconnier, Gilles, and Mark Turner. 2002. The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind’s Hidden Complexities. New York: Basic Books. https://doi.org/10.1086/378014
Frazer, James George. 1994 [1890]. The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Gergely, György, and Gergely Csibra. 2003. “Teleological Reasoning in Infancy: The Naïve Theory of Rational Action”. Trends in Cognitive Science 7 (July): 287–92. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6613(03)00128-1
Gergely, György, Zoltán Nádasdy, Gergely Csibra and Szilvia Bíró. 1995. “Taking the Intentional Stance at 12 Months of Age”. Cognition 56(2): 165–93. https://doi.org/10.1016/0010-0277(95)00661-H
Gerhart, Mary, and Allan Melvin Russell. 2001. New Maps for Old: Explorations in Science and Religion. New York: Bloomsbury. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0360966900010410
Guthrie, Stewart Elliot. 1993. Faces in the Clouds: A New Theory of Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Guthrie, Stewart Elliot. 1996. “Religion: What Is It?” Journal for the Social Scientific Study of Religion 35(4): 412–19. https://doi.org/10.2307/1386417
Hufford, D. J. 2005. “Sleep Paralysis as Spiritual Experience”. Transcultural Psychiatry 42: 11–45. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363461505050709
Hughes, Aaron W. 2012. Abrahamic Religions: On Uses and Abuses of History. New York: Oxford University Press.
Laurendeau, M., and A. Pinard. 1962. Causal Thinking in the Child. New York: International Universities Press.
Leeming, David A., Kathryn Madden and Stanton Marlan, eds. 2010. Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion. New York: Springer.
Lewis-Williams, David. 2010. Conceiving God: The Cognitive Origin and Evolution of Religion. London: Thames & Hudson. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003598x00067661
Luomanen, Petri. 2011. “Cognitive Science in Biblical Studies: An Overview”. In Collegium Biblicum Årsskrift: Kogntionsforskning og eksegese, eds. Knud Jeppesen and Kasper Bro Larsen, 15–32. Denmark: Collegium Biblicum.
Luomanen, Petri, Ilkka Pyysiäinen and Risto Uro. 2007. “Introduction: Social and Cognitive Perspectives in the Study of Christian Origins and Early Judaism”. In Explaining Christian Origins and Early Judaism: Contributions from Cognitive and Social Science, eds. Petri Luomanen, Ilkka Pyysiäinen and Risto Uro, 27–33. Leiden and Boston: Brill. https://doi.org/10.1177/1046107909106760
Murray, M. J., and Andrew Goldberg. 2009. “Evolutionary Accounts of Religion: Explaining and Explaining Away”. In The Believing Primate: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Reflections on the Origin of Religion, eds. J. Schloss and M. J. Murray, 44–75. New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199557028.003.0010
Nemeroff, Carol, and Paul Rozin. 1994. “The Contagion Concept in Adult Thinking in the United States: Transmission of Germs and of Interpersonal Influence”. Ethos 22(2): 158–86. https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.1994.22.2.02a00020
Newberg, Andrew, Eugene D’Aquili and Vince Rause. 2008. Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. New York: Ballantine.
Piaget, Jean. 1930. The Child’s Conception of Physical Causality. New York: Harcourt Brace & Company.
Pyysiäinen, Ilkka. 2004. Magic, Miracles, and Religion: A Scientist’s Perspective. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. https://doi.org/10.1177/000842980503400328
Rosengren, Karl S., Carl N. Johnson and Paul L. Harris, eds. 2000. Imagining the Impossible: Magical, Scientific, and Religious Thinking in Children. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511571381
Sørensen, Jesper. 2007. A Cognitive Theory of Magic. Plymouth: AltaMira Press.
Spelke, Elizabeth S. 1990. “Principles of Object Perception”. Cognitive Science 14(1): 29–56. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog1401_3
Spelke, Elizabeth S., and Katherine D. Kinzler. 2007. “Core Knowledge”. Developmental Science 10(1): 89–96. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00569.x
Spencer, Herbert. 1876–1896. Principles of Sociology. New York: Appleton.
Stoichita, Victor I. 1997. A Short History of the Shadow. London: Reaktion.
Stroumsa, Guy G. 2015. The Making of Abrahamic Religions in Late Antiquity. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/islam-2017-0019
Tylor, Edward Burnett. 1871. Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art, and Custom. London: Murray. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511705953.009
Von Franz, Marie-Luise. 1995 [1974]. Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales. Boston, MA: Shambhala.
Von Thaden, Robert H., Jr. 2012. Sex, Christ, and Embodied Cognition: Paul’s Wisdom for Corinth. Atlanta, GA: SBL Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1qv5r1z
Wachtel, Edward. 1993. “The First Picture Show: Cinematic Aspects of Cave Art”. Leonardo 26(2): 135–40. https://doi.org/10.2307/1575898
Warner, Marina. 2006. Phantasmagoria: Spirit Visions, Metaphors, and Media into the Twenty-first Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5922.2007.00693_7.x
Whitehouse, Harvey. 2004. Modes of Religiosity: A Cognitive Theory of Religious Transmission. London: Alta Mira.
Wilson, Robert A., and Frank Keil. 1998. “The Shadows and Shallows of Explanation”. Minds and Machines 8(1): 137–59. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1008259020140
Yoshida, M. 1962. “The Effect of Light on the Shadow Reaction of the Sea Urchin, Diadema Setosum (LESKE)”. Journal of Experimental Biology 39: 589–602.
Published
2019-10-14
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Robertson, P. (2019). Shadows in the New Testament: Cognitive Approaches to Early Christian Literature. Journal of Cognitive Historiography, 4(2), 199-222. https://doi.org/10.1558/jch.35292
