Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Graham" <kevlds AT hotmail.com>
> 
> 
> Hi Karl,
...
> == Along the same lines are the anthropomorphisms for God. An 
> English equivalent would be the statement "He walked into that 
> situation with  open eyes" which all but the most obtuse would 
> recognize that the person in question did something fully 
> recognizing what he was getting into;
> 
> No, that is an idomatic expression.
> 
> == I see no reason to say that ancient Hebrews did not recognize 
> these as figures of speech.
> 
> What you guys can't seem to come to grips with is the fact that 
> you're assuming these woprds are idomatic expressions without 
> evidence. When the literal reading makes perfect sense, there is no 
> reason to go hunting for plausible, variant explanations. 
> Explanations which merely beg the question.
> 
> It isn't enough that the Hebrews couldn't have used these as 
> idomatic expressions. Following this rationale, they "could have" 
> understood "backparts" to mean green pea soup. I mean, can you 
> prove that they didn't?
> 
> When the plain reading makes perfect sense, metaphor and allegory 
> must be proved, not assumed.

Kevin:

What you are assuming, an assumption that now 
goes back two centuries, is that the ancient 
Hebrews were too simple minded to recognize and 
use word plays and idiomatic phrases. I make no 
such assumption.

Further, you assume that the ancient Hebrews 
were unable to recognize and use abstract 
thinking. When modern preschoolers are capable 
of abstract thinking as an innate ability 
without it being taught them, either there has 
been a big increase of capabilities in the last 
couple of millennia, that the ancient Hebrews 
were subhuman or they were just as mentally 
capable as we modern humans (the last view I 
subscribe to). The ability to recognize and use 
idioms is part of abstract thinking.

As for the use of the word CLM to indicate 
corporality of the ancient concept of God, 
there is reason to doubt: for one, the basic 
meaning of CLM is "shadow", i.e. something that 
represents but does not match the object that 
casts the shadow. Even what it is made of can 
be completely different. When it refers to the 
"shadow" of an object, that "shadow" will never 
be mistaken for the real McCoy, e.g. the gold 
rats and buboes of the Philistines in 1 Samuel, 
it was clear that these were not the buboes and 
rats, rather just representations thereof. 
Therefore, to say that man is made in the CLM 
of God does not automatically assume that God 
has physical corporality, strictly from a 
linguistic analysis.

Further, when we look at the context of 
statements commonly used to indicate 
corporality, they don't show it. For example, 
when God caused Israel to exit Egypt "with an 
uplifted arm", not once was a physical arm seen 
by either Israel nor Egypt, but the actions 
were. Clearly, then, "an uplifted arm" is an 
idiom, an idiom signifying activity.

Do people influenced by hellenistic and/or more 
modernistic western thinking assume that God 
has a body, as in the old man in the sky? Some 
obviously do, as in the folk belief that God 
puts on his tefilin every day. But such a 
belief does not mean that Tanakh teaches that 
God as a physical body.

Karl W. Randolph.


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