What Language Does God Speak?
Florentina Badalanova Geller2018
на майка ми, за чийто рожден ден не можах да си дойда тази година 5.1 Lingua Sacra Equated The statement that for Jews, Christians and Muslims "the language of God" is conventionally identified with their respective lingua sacra-that is, with the language of their own Holy Scriptures-is a commonplace one. 1 However, if we take into consideration the vernacular interpretations of either the Biblical or the Quranic narratives, which have been circulating among Jewish, Christian and Muslim communities within and/or outside the "Holy Land(s)" of the Abrahamic faiths, the picture is entirely different. Storytellers often identify the "divine proto-language," the language of their Holy Book(s), with their native tongue, which is then implicitly recognized as sacred. The empirical data registered during anthropological, ethnographic and folklore field research, conducted over the last two centuries among traditional societies in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere, is indicative of this connection. Its analysis reveals a fascinating phenomenon. The unlettered "people of the Book," who could not read the scriptural text, nevertheless sung and recounted what they imagined to be the "Bible." 2 Unlike its canonical counterpart, this unwritten Holy Writ was as intangible as it was incorporeal. Its oral versions were perpetually reassembled at each new performance. In fact, it was the Bible ever imagined, but never held. Rather than as a book, it was perceived as a collective intellectual construct existing only as a virtual scriptural corpus. At vernacular level the Folk Bible routinely operated as a metaphorical device achieving stability and harmony in both the macrocosm and the microcosm. It was envisaged as the ultimate customary codex of rules for public and private life. In folklore tradition, Biblical patriarchs and matriarchs were habitually perceived as almighty ancestors, shielding those invoking them from all kinds of natural disasters, social calamities, personal misadventures, health problems and misfortunes. The use of the Biblical onomasticon in traditional spells, incantations and charms accompanying protective rituals, healing customs, and related practices is particularly significant. In all of 1 This article incorporates results of the author's earlier publications on the topic of vernacular renditions of some Biblical and Quranic narratives;
