Series:

author:

Summary:

In this monograph, the semantics of the word רע (bad) is examined across the corpus of Ancient Hebrew and the Mishnah. The study takes cognitive linguistic theories as its theoretical base and proceeds by first examining the schematic content that רע tends to modify (as an adjective). It moves on to map the lexical semantic domains of רע and then examines רע with reference to some major terms within these domains. The study concludes by presenting a thorough description of רע derived from the analysis. It relates these findings to the previous studies on רע as well as the lexica before suggesting how a new entry on רע might be written. In addition to the important findings on רע, the study points to what is likely an important difference between עון and און which requires further investigation.