Possible analogies for imagining folk–philosophies in ancient Israelite religion

Abstract

In this paper, the author seeks to facilitate the process of imagining the presence of philosophical assumptions in the religious language of the Hebrew Bible. After a meta-philosophical deconstruction of the concept of "philosophy" to blur the lines with folk-philosophies, the article seeks to dispute the scholarly consensus alleging the complete absence of philosophical data in ancient Israelite religion. This is done by way of several possible analogies for conceiving of philosophy in Yahwism(s), e.g., historical approaches in Jewish Philosophy, Area Studies in ancient Near Eastern philosophy, the methodological debates in African Philosophy, recent research on philosophy in literature and a century of philosophical approaches to the study of myth.