Similarity Is Not Genealogy: Transmission, Convergence, and Anachronism in Cross-Cultural Interpretation
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Cross-cultural comparison often begins with a real observation and ends with an unjustified genealogy. Similar names, images, foods, technologies, or religious functions may reflect historical transmission, but they may also arise through independent adaptation, recurring engineering constraints, or later metaphorical reuse. This article proposes a first-principles method for distinguishing these possibilities. It requires chronological priority, a plausible contact route, intermediate evidence, specificity, continuity with change, and serious testing of rival explanations before a genealogical claim is made. The method is tested through the personification of death in Ugaritic, biblical Hebrew, rabbinic literature, and the Qur’an. The shared Northwest Semitic root m-w-t establishes lexical relationship, while the changing forms—Ugaritic Môtu, biblical poetic personification, the rabbinic Angel of Death, and Qur’anic malak al-mawt—show semantic and theological reconfiguration rather than a single unchanged figure. The article distinguishes this case from functional and environmental convergence and from modern theological analogy, including comparisons between divine attributes and technological surveillance. Its central claim is modest but productive: resemblance is evidence that asks a question; it is not, by itself, the answer.
Author: Grace, Daniel J.
Language: English
Subfield: Religious studies
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7204186108
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