The Semantics of the Narrative Space of Gn 2,4-11,9 in the Perspective of Spatial Turn: An Application of Jurij M. Lotman's Concept of the Semiosphere on Biblical Narrative
Abstract
This study is devoted to the semantic significance of the following biblical spaces: the garden, the field, and the city, mentioned in the textual unit of Gn 2,4-11,9. The default methodological pre-understanding of this contribution consists of the "spatial turn" which considers, in a yet overshadowed category of space, an important structure which determines the significance of the narrative plots which always contain a certain spatial character.
This study is based on the theoretical concept of semiosphere by Jurij Lotman, which is used as a semantic analysis of the textual forms of biblical spaces. Consequentially, an inherent part of this work will also present a problematic of portraying space in the medium of text and the impact of the mythical genre of the textual unit on the interpretation of space.
In the closing chapters, the actions of the described narrative textual unit (the fall of man, Kain's murder of Abel, building of the tower of Babel) will be considered as a narrative display of the conflict between the "texts" of individual semiospheres which strive to occupy a dominant position in the system, and thus establish their own content as a structural code of a given space. Finally, the study also applies Lotman's process of assimilation of foreign texts in the semiosphere on the textual unit of a chosen biblical narrative and follows it in the exegetic part.