UDC 124.5:27-242/-245

Maryna Chumachenko
postgraduate student of Department of
Cultural Studies and Media Communications
of Kharkiv State Academy of Culture

Abstract. The article presents a symbolic potential of light and darkness as axioconstructs and axioregulators at the symbolic level of the Old Testament. The peculiarities of light and darkness manifestation as specific cultural sanctions in the mechanism of regulating the ontological continuum of personality were highlighted.

The author determined their role in shaping axioconstants in the field of the Old Testament narrative. The semantics of light and darkness presentation as formative elements and value regulators that are inextricably linked with the process of personalizing an individual — one of the most important anthropological and cultural universals, was considered.

It was found that light and darkness are the active semantic, symbolic and metaphoric, mythopoetic constructs in the numinous field of the Bible which implement the necessity of existence of axial issues of the spiritual anthropology. Within the religious frame of the Old Testament texts light and darkness serve as the basis for a kind of dialogue between axiology and ontology, theology and cultural studies.

Rationale of the article topic is conditioned by the necessity of understanding the axiological content of culture in a variety of its morphological presentations, mechanisms of integration of mythopoetic into theological sphere as well as identifying formants of cultural texts in which certain traditions correlate the ontological space of an individual by protecting values.

Clarification of the symbolic potential of light and darkness as axioconstructs and axioregulators will reveal features of shaping the spiritual space of the Old Testament texts that are the foundation of the Christian culture. The purpose of the article is to carry out cultorological understanding of the role and place of light and darkness in the ethical field of the Old Testament.

The object of the article is the texts of the Old Testament as a core monument of the Christian culture. The subject is value potencies of light and darkness in the symbolic field of the Old Testament. The article focuses on the fact that the semantic field of symbolism of light and darkness and variability of its presentation serve as tools in the formation of axioconstants of the Old Testament as well as the sacred paradigm of the Old Testament anthropology with its personalist component.

Semantic and symbolic potential of light and darkness exhibits equivalence chains in numerous versions of the sacred that are an essential factor in legitimizing values of the Christian worldview. Light and darkness are the formative elements of the regulatory mechanism of culture through the transformation of values into their regulatory status, and nodal points of intersecting theological and cultural fields. They lay the foundation for understanding the mechanism of the sacred art in its Christian form.

Keywords: light, darkness, axiology, Old Testament, sacral/secular, axioconversion.

Refences:

Aleksiy, V. Old Testament New (2015). Uzhgorod : ODO “Patent” [in Ukrainian].

The Bible, or the books of the Holy Scriptures of the old and New Testament (1990). Kyiv: N.p. [in Ukrainian].

Golubinskiy, F. A. (1868). Lectures on speculative theology, written in 1841-42 academic year student Academy V. Nazarevsky. Moscow: N.p. [in Russian].

Diachenko, G. M. (1892). The lessons and examples of Christian faith. Systematic collection of selected patristic sayings, brief Church histories and stories from the lives of saints and other spiritual content articles, arranged according to the plan the first part of “Lengthy Christian catechism” clearly and explaining in detail its contents. Moscow: Tip. E. G. Potapova [in Russian].

Korsunskiy, I. (1885). New Testament interpretation of the old Testament. Moscow: Tip. L. F. Snegireva [in Russian].

Mikhail, iyeromonakh (1888). The truth of the existence of God. Experience understanding of fundamental Christian truths of the natural human thought. Sankt-Peterburg Tip. F. Eleonskogo i K° [in Russian].