Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

GESTURES

Body movements made mainly with the head, face alone, or the limbs. Gestures are one element in a larger dimension of human behavior known as nonverbal communication. If the biblical author does not explicitly mention or describe a gesture, the reader may find it difficult to imagine the gesture appropriate to the given situation. The imaginative reader must remember that gestures in one culture often carry an entirely different — sometimes obscene — meaning in another culture. One and the same gesture does not translate readily and easily from culture to culture.

Gestures are conscious or unconscious body movements, learned or somatogenic. They serve as a primary communicative tool, dependent on or independent from verbal language, and modified by conditioning (e.g., smiles, eye movements, a gesture of beckoning, or a tic). These should be distinguished from manners (body attitudes, e.g., the way one eats) and postures (positions of the body, e.g., sitting, standing). Distinction is made between free gestures performed by a part of the body without contacting any other part or object (e.g., eye movements, head nods, hand gestures), and bound gestures where hands come into contact with each other or other body parts (e.g., scratching one’s eyes, using a knife and fork, jewelry).

Four categories of gestures may be identified: (1) idiosyncratic, or unique to a person (e.g., hitting the right thigh with the palm of the right hand to express joy, surprise; cf. the earthling upon meeting his new mate in Gen. 2:23); (2) culturally induced and learned (e.g., dancing or mourning rituals; Matt. 11:17); (3) technical, therefore arbitrary and requiring prior verbal agreement (e.g., hand-signals of merchants such as fishmongers in the market place); and (4) semiotic, substitutes for speech, linked with cultural traditions (e.g., swearing an oath by placing the right hand on a body part: tip of nose, moustache or beard, phallus; Gen. 24:2, 9). Robert A. Barakat’s study of Arab gestures offers an important entrée into further investigation of gestures in the Middle East; experts agree that the pre-Islamic Bedouin substratum of cultural components lives on in the folk culture of the traditional majority.

Mayer I. Gruber’s mainly philological analysis of postures, gestures, and facial expressions in ancient Israel, Canaan, and Mesopotamia is helpful in understanding the literal description of gestures and the idiomatic use of phrases to convey attitudes, ideas, and feelings communicated by gestures, postures, and facial expression. The Middle Eastern world is non-, indeed anti-introspective, and a modern reader must be careful not to impose Western thought patterns upon this world.

A serious challenge is the modern reader’s inability to observe the people described in the biblical record. Is it possible to imagine plausible gestures where a text does not mention them? Literary anthropology, a relatively new approach to the study of literature inspired by Fernando Poyatos, would argue in the affirmative. Clearly the investigator is dealing with signs that communicate, i.e., with the many forms of communication, mostly nonverbal, that define individuals and cultures, conveyed by the culture’s narrative literature in which such information is embedded.

Illustrations

Head

“Wagging the head” is a free gesture. The movement is probably side to side horizontally, or perhaps in an arc from shoulder to shoulder rather than up and down. Dictionaries customarily explain the phrase as a “sign of scorn and derision,” drawing this culturally determined meaning from Ps. 109:25. Of six occurrences in the biblical text three are free gestures (Ps. 64:8[MT 9]; 109:25; Isa. 37:22) and three are bound. Ps. 22:7, cited in Matt. 27:39, links the head with “making mouths,” while Lam. 2:15 links the head with hissing and clapping of hands. These bound gestures present a fuller picture of nonverbal means of expressing scorn and derision in this culture.

Face Alone

In Middle Eastern culture, the face is a key element in the other-determined, outward-oriented character of honor. The purpose of life is to maintain or save face and never lose face. If God sets the divine face against a person or city, the consequent shame is perhaps more devastating than the withdrawal of divine protection and beneficence (cf. Lev. 20:5-6; Jer. 21:10; Ezek. 14:8; 15:7).

Further, the eyes play a significant role in the face-based gestural repertoire of biblical people. In the biblical perspective on the human person, the eyes are linked with the heart (as mouth is with ears and hands with feet) from which both good and evil can flow. Jesus expresses the cultural conviction that from the heart comes the “evil eye” (often translated “envy”; cf. Mark 7:22). Contemporary Mediterranean natives refer to the “fierce look,” the “gaze,” or the “stare” as reflecting the activity of an evil eye. Yet because eye behavior is predominantly involuntary and therefore more difficult to manipulate than facial expression, one can never know when an eye might slip into this look, gaze, or stare. As Sirach notes (Sir. 31:12-13), God has created nothing more evil than the evil eye. Prov. 23:6-8 warns against eating what an evil-eyed person offers; such a host feigns generosity but is actually stingy, and the guest will vomit. In his discussion of the year of release and canceling of debts, the Deuteronomist (Deut. 15:7-11) warns against ignoring the plight of a needy person (or giving such a one the “evil eye”) out of (greedy) fear the debt will not be repaid. Though not explicitly mentioned in any biblical text, an interpreter can plausibly surmise that a person in a situation where the evil eye might be operative, as well as the person who reads or hears biblical texts about such situations, is very likely immediately making the appropriate protective hand gestures or stroking the appropriately colored talisman for protection against the power of this gesture. In sum, there is a wealth of cultural meaning wrapped up in the Mediterranean understanding of the eye and the gestures a person could make with it.

Limbs

When speaking of gestures, most people think of the hands. In the Middle East, the left hand is used exclusively for toilet functions. To appreciate the cultural significance of this practice, consider Jesus’ statement in the Sermon on the Mount: “Do not resist one who is evil. If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matt. 5:39). Here is a culturally plausible scenario for imagining that deed.

Middle Easterners routinely interact with a space of about 15-20 cm. (6-8 in.) between them (in contrast to the 30-40 cm. [12-16 in.] of personal space preferred by Westerners). The listener wants to feel the breath of the speaker against the face. The speaker routinely places the right arm on the forearm or shoulder of the listener. If the discussion should become heated or excited, the distance between both parties decreases till they are eyeball to eyeball. Should either lose control and strike at the other, there are two possibilities. One is to back away and slap at the right cheek with the back of the right hand, an insulting move. The other is to remain at close quarters which makes it impossible to bring the right arm into play but rather allows the left hand to slap the right cheek — a deeply offensive insult indeed.

This instruction, along with the entire Sermon on the Mount, is intended to guide in-group behavior. It was directed to the disciples (Matt. 5:1-2). As an example to outsiders, the insult should not be avenged. But in relationships with outsiders, the insulted party would make an appropriate response, and the one who posed the insult should hope for the intervention of a mediator to prevent escalation to further violence and bloodshed (cf. Matt. 5:9).

This exclusive function of the left hand also sheds fresh light on the gesture of “cutting off the hand.” According to Deut. 25:12 a woman who interferes in a fight involving her husband by grabbing the genitals of his opponent should have her hand cut off. Force of cultural habit suggests she used her left hand, though in a moment of excitement like this it might have been her right hand. The Qurʾan (5:38) prescribes amputating the right hand of a convicted thief. Matthew’s Jesus recommends that a person tripped up by the right hand should personally amputate it (Matt. 5:29-30). Whether as punishment or a means to leading a better life, losing the right hand in the Middle East is the equivalent of a death sentence. It makes social life exceedingly difficult, if not impossible.

Biblical authors could safely presume that their original readers, fellow ethnics, would fill in the appropriate details such as elements of nonverbal communication or gestures that could accompany the written text. Modern students of the Bible can become similarly equipped by immersing themselves into the appropriate resources.

Bibliography. R. A. Barakat, “Arabic Gestures,” Journal of Popular Culture 6 (1973): 749-92; J. H. Elliott, “The Evil Eye in the First Testament,” in The Bible and the Politics of Exegesis, ed. D. Jobling, P. L. Day, and G. T. Sheppard (Cleveland, 1991), 147-59; M. I. Gruber, Aspects of Nonverbal Communication in the Ancient Near East. Studia Pohl 12/1-2 (Rome, 1980); R. Joseph, “Toward a Semiotics of Middle Eastern Cultures,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 12 (1980): 319-29; J. J. Pilch, “A Window into the Biblical World: Actions Speak Louder than Words,” Bible Today 34 (1996): 172-76; F. Poyatos, ed., Advances in Nonverbal Communication (Amsterdam, 1988); Literary Anthropology (Amsterdam, 1988).

John J. Pilch

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

GESTURES

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)