Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Title: Re: Isaiah 40:22

Dear Lawrence,

I have just completed a book entitled (in English translation) "Science and Bible Translation A study of "christianization" and "mythologization" in the translation of the Hebrew text of the Bible". It is based on a study of three Danish and two Norwegian Bible translations and will soon be published in those two languages.

My vantage point has been the paradigms on which the translators have built their work. Three such paradigms are evident, 1) The Bible is inspired by God and true in every resepct, 2) Jesus Christ is the center of the Bible and the value of the words depends on their relation to him, and 3) the Bible is a human document with all the same errors as are found in all other human documents (  the historical-critical model). The coloring of the translated text of the OT in a Christian or mythological way is very much related to the paradigm of the translators.

Interestingly, paradigm 1 and 2 have often been criticized by critical scholars. Differences of opinion regarding details of 3) are often voiced, but the paradigm as such are seldom questioned by critical scholars. This means that a host of things which are pure speculation are taken for granted, and is conveyed from teacher to student and from teacher to student generation after generation, from the days of Eichorn, Graf, Wellhausen, Döderlein and Rosenmuller and up to the present. My point is that we should be more critical towards the critical paradigm itself and stop taking so much for granted.

As to your question, I suggest that you read about Middle Babylonian astronomy from the 7th century BCE onward and see how much the astronomers of that time knew about the universe. Please also consider Eratostenes of Cyrene 276-194 BCE. On the basis of the 7 degree difference of the angle of the rays of the sun in Alexandria compared to Syene (Aswan) he was able to calculate the circumference of the Earth with an error of between 1/2 to 17 percent. That was long before Columbus! Why should not the writers of the Bible have an accurate knowledge of particular things?

I have not claimed that the Bible is a textbook of the natural sciences, but I suggest that we take its words at face value instead of reading them through the glasses of a certain paradigm, or, perhaps more realistic, that we are constant aware of the paradigm to which we subscribe, and take that into consideration when we work with the Biblical text.

Regards

Rolf

Rolf Furuli

University of Oslo

> Does this mean that the bible teaches
> that the ancients knew the Earth was round contrary to those
> contemporary with Christopher Columbus who believed in a flat
> earth
> Rolf Furuli wrote:
> > Dear John,  I think the
> > comments in this thread have failed to address the main part of your
> > question, so I will give some comments. The central sense the
> > word heth waw gimel is a geometric circle, and this is evidently the
> > sense in Isaiah 40:22. As to the term aleph resh sade, it is of
> > paramount importance to keep in mind that word meaning is not
> > found in lexicons and word books, which just contain glosses, but
> > word meaning is found in the minds of living people, those who spoke
> > Hebrew in ancient times. The letters of a Hebrew (or English)
> > word have no intrinsic meaning, but they signal a concept (or
> > sometimes two or more concepts) in the minds of native speakers. The
> > context in which a word occurs does not generate new meaning, but
> > helps the reader to understand which part of the concept the writer
> > wanted to make visible. The word in question can refer to a
> > particular area inhabited by a nation, a smaller part of this area,
> > or to the whole earth. So, which part of the concept signaled by
> > aleph resh sade does the author of Isaiah 40:22 make visible? The
> > setting is heaven and earth and their creation, and God is enthroned
> > above the circle of the earth. The sense can hardly be anything 
> > but the planet earth. Do I hear another question behind your
> > written question, namely, did the writer of the chapter imply that
> > the earth is a sphere? The question is somewhat anachronistic, but it
> > can be rephrased. If your physician suspects that you have
> > experienced a small bleeding inside your brain and a CT or MR picture
> > is taken, and it shows a small bright spot, the physician will not
> > say: "This finding proves that you have had a bleeding."
> > But the physician will say: "This finding conforms with our
> > suspection that you have had a bleeding." So the question can be
> > rephrased thus: "Do the words of Isaiah conform with the modern
> > view of a spherical earth?" To this question the answer is
> > yes. To illustrate the case further, we can take a look at
> > 40:26-28. These words conforms with the first and second laws of
> > thermodynamics, which are two of the most fundamental laws of nature.
> > The first law tells about the constancy of energy an mass, energy can
> > be transformed into mass, vice versa, but energy/mass cannot
> > destroyed, so the amount is constant. The second law tells that the
> > total amount of usable energy will allways decrease until
> > equilibrium is reached. The words of Isaiah about the eternal
> > God whose power/energy is the cause of the universe conforms well
> > with law I (energy can be turned into matter - energy is eternal).
> > The words about the creation of the universe (it had a
> > beginning) conforms well with law II. If the universe was eternal,
> > equilibrium had already been reached and radioactive material and and
> > temperature differences would not have existed in the universe. While
> > the words of Isaiah conforms with the two laws, he did not know about
> > these laws or about the equation E=mc2, which can be an _expression_ of
> > law I. My conclusion is that we should not try to read modern
> > science into the Bible, but neither should we read mythology into it
> > if that is not warranted. A more balanced approach is to ask whether
> > particular words conform with or contradict fundamental
> > data.  Regards Rolf  Rolf
> > Furuli University of Oslo    
> > > How is the _expression_ "circle of
> > > the earth" to be viewed based on the the
> > > original Hebrew word "chuwg"
> > > as found at Isaiah 40:22
> >  ---