Abomination taking the Sheqets (Abomination, Language and the Bible, Part 1)

Abominable and abomination are fascinating words. They come to us from the Latin abominabilis which, according to my copy of the Lewis and Short Latin dictionary means ‘deserving of  imprecation or abhorrence’ but originally meant ‘deplore as an evil omen’, according to the pretty good Online Etymology Dictionary by Douglas Harper. This makes sense as it becomes ab ominatis ([away] from the prophesied), suggesting a movement from that which might indicate bad tidings, or the feeling you might have on receiving an evil omen.

The main source of these word is, of course, the Bible, where they occur  around 130 times, depending on version. Related terms are also common; another word that would later become interchangeable with abomination - detestable - occurs around 120 times.
In the Old Testament, abominable and abomination are usually translations of the Biblical Hebrew words shiqquwts, shâqats and sheqets, tōʻēḇā or to'e'va, ta'ev or taab, ba_ash, zaam, and pigguwl or piggul. It would appear that abominable and abomination were a much more complicated affair than most modern English Bibles would have us believe.

To begin with, let’s take a quick look at the first three of these: shiqquwts, shâqats and sheqets. These words did not always have the same moral connotations as implied by the use of abominabilis in the Vulgate, and abomination in most modern English Bibles. They more relate to something taboo or forbidden, rather than the exceptional type of revulsion, hatred and disgust that the words relating to abomination are currently associated with. Where shiqquwts, shâqats and sheqets are always translated as abomination/abominable in most modern English Bibles, they were often rendered using different words in the Vulgate.

Shiqquwts

Referring to idolatry

abominations (Deuteronomy 29:17)
idolum/idolos (1 Kings 11:5-7) Idols.

abominations (Jeremiah 13:27)

abominatio (Daniel 9:27)

abominationem (Daniel 11:31)
Referring to scandals

offensiones (Ezekiel 20:7) 

abominations (Ezekiel 20:8). 

Referring to sinful sacrifices, or sacrifices done incorrectly

abominationibus (Isaiah 66:3)

Referring to witchcraft

abominationesque (2 Kings 24:25) or, [and] abominations.

Shâqats

Referring to contamination or pollution

‘contaminare’ (Leviticus 11:43)

‘polluatis’ (Leviticus 20:25)

Sheqets

Referring to pollution/the uncleanliness of certain creatures

polluta (Leviticus 11:12) shellfish

abominabile (Leviticus 11:41) Creepy crawlies

abominatus (Leviticus 20:23) More creepy crawlies

Generally, these words mean things to be avoided and taboo, from shellfish to worshipping God in the wrong way, but aren’t (apart from the creepy crawlies) necessarily disgusting or revolting in that yucky/icky way. It is also worth noting where the Vulgate and most modern English Bibles differ. It would seem that both the Hebrew and the Vulgate had more subtle meanings than we find in most modern English Bibles, with pollution separate from what we might now call abomination in the Latin, and a division of action (Shiqquwts), contamination (Shâqats) and the pollution of certain creatures (Sheqets) in the Hebrew.

This merging of subtle emotional states into a single blanket emotion through a change in language – by either natural drift or translation – is an intriguing peek at how emotions at a sociocultural level and language seem to exist in symbiosis. When one changes, so does the other.

In the next few posts, I’ll look at the other Hebrew words for abomination, and finally the Greek New Testament words bdelugma, bdeluktos, bdelusso, and athemitos. Once I have done that, I shall reflect back and see what these snapshots can tell us about the shifting landscape of abomination and disgust through history.

That should keep me out of trouble for a while.

Why I am an [Emotional] Agnostic.

Academics who argue about the emotions tend to get, well, rather emotional about it. 

They attach themselves to an emotional paradigm formed from their intellectual cultures, with nothing more, as far as I can tell, than  a feeling that it is the right idea. ‘Emotions are biological and natural’ cry neuroscientists while they scratch their heads about why they keep getting conflicting results from the Amygdala, Insular Cortex and so on. ‘No it is clearly a sociocultural construction and nurtured’ shout the anthropologists, as they try to hide those elements of emotions that do seem to be universal at some level or other behind the tangled brambles of theory.

Deep within this, perhaps the last vestige of the nature/nurture civil war within the social and biological sciences, are two uncomfortable truths. 

1. Their epistemic choices are almost always based upon their commitment to their formal education more than they are critical thinking and   

2. (and I this I think backs-up 1). The argument is too far from a consensus to call.

Most of us know our Ekman’s from our Panksepp’s, our Mead’s from our Lutz’s, our Reddy’s from our Rosenwien’s, our Affective Neuroscience from our Core Affect and our Melancholia from our Depression, and it seems to be necessary that we choose a side. But is it really?

Studying emotions is at its core scientific, and I do not think it is desirable to make assumptions about the data when we do not yet have enough of it. Both the nature and nurture sides make compelling cases, and both sides have compelling, well researched and potentially falsifiable  evidence to back up their positions. This would suggest that any comprehensive understanding of emotions will involve all of this data, not just one set or another.

Emotions are complex brutes. They may well have an objective reality: an evolved task to perform that is, or was, essential to the wellbeing of our species and the transmitting of our genes. Indeed, it is rather obtuse to suggest that these, what I like to call ‘affects’, are otherwise for humans when few would argue the case for other animal species. It is clear that these sensations also have culturally based intersubjective elements tied to causes, expected behaviours, moral codes and social hierarchies. These intersubjective elements, which I like to call ‘emotions’, no less constitute the overall emotional structure than does affect, and to call them simply window-dressing is like calling a formula one driver just an add on to the car. Finally, there is a subjective element; the best word for these, I believe, is ‘feelings’. Some things I find disgusting you will not; some things I get excited about you will not.  

Beyond this, it is hard to say what is right. It is just as likely that Russell’s core affect model is right as it is Gray’s model of emotional systems or Smith and Ellsworth’s eight dimensional model. They all work; they all don’t work. 

For those of us engaged in the humanities,  there is good news: it doesn’t matter. We can review textual, visual and material expressions of affects, emotions and feelings without needing a final explanation. We don’t even need to get into the nature/nurture debate as the stomping ground for most of us is in the intersubjective, with the objective scarcely to be found in the sources directly and the subjective, well, far too subjective. As a result,  we can take a step back and focus on how emotions shape, and are shaped by, groups of people.

For me, until we have more data and are closer to a consensus, anything other than emotional agnosticism would be intellectually dishonest.