Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Kevin:

First of all, there are those who claim that 
your reading that posits physical attributes 
to the deity is reading the text through the 
eyes of Hellenistic philosophy, not Hebraic 
thought. And don't forget that even as the 
LXX translated Tanakh to Greek, they too 
were influenced by Hellenism, even if only 
not to mention some of the anthropomorphisms 
to avoid arguing with Hellenists.

It was openly stated that what is usually 
called "Biblical cosmology" really is 
medieval cosmology which was formed by 
looking at Biblical passages through 
Hellenistic eyes. Your attribution of 
physical attributes to God follows the 
Hellenistic pattern. Some of the signs of 
Hellenistic reading are to read idiomatic 
phrases as describing literal form, and to 
emphasize form over function where Tanakh 
emphasized function over form. Thus when 
Genesis 1:26-7 mentions that man was made 
"in the image of God", Hellenists look for 
physical attributes, while ancient Hebrews 
looked for functional actions, how man acts 
like God while fulfilling his role as God's 
representative as a created being in charge 
of the created universe.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Graham" <kevlds AT hotmail.com>
> 
> 
> Hi Peter,
> 
> == Well, you are the one who started this by claiming that God 
> really has body parts etc - or at least that the biblical authors 
> believed that he had.
> 
> Yes, and I maintain this position with considerable comfort. I have 
> respectable scholars backing it.
> 
See below.

> == So that puts the burden of proof back on you. And part of that 
> burden of proof includes answering the very ancient arguments that 
> such language is metaphorical.
> 
> But you have yet to establish that these were "very ancient 
> arguments" via metaphor. You've simply been arguing via assertion; 
> that because metaphor exists elsewhere in the OT, then this must be 
> the case for every single example of anthropomorphism. I'm sorry 
> but this is simply a nonchalant way of explaining things. By this 
> logic, the entire Bible should be read allegorically. Why? Well 
> there are allegories in it.
> 
> Metaphor is an acceptable way to appraoch anthropomorphisms which 
> appear in poetic texts like Isaiah or the Psalms. But there is 
> hardly anything poetic about Genesis 1:26 or the Sinai experience.
> 
The idioms that you cite in the exodus and 
desert implying corporality were not poetic, 
but at the same time neither Israel nor 
Egypt *saw* any evidence of God's physical 
attributes, all they saw were the actions.
> 
> ...
> 
> == As I pointed out before, it hardly can have been by the 
> Chronicler and Zechariah who wrote of God's eyes running. But 
> perhaps the earlier writers had a rather different view.
> 
> What I see you and Karl doing is picking examples that are clearly 
> metaphors and placing them centerstage. This is fine, so long as we 
> don't presume these examples establish the rule for all existing 
> anthropomorphisms. Too many of them simply cannot be explained this 
> way, ...
> 
Of course we do, we describe the easy ones 
first, establish the pattern, then claim 
that the harder ones still follow the same 
pattern. You do the same thing, only to 
support your thesis. We disagree.

> == But it is impossible to tell from one individual example whether 
> the author was using these terms literally or metaphorically.
> 
> True, but if we assume Moses was a consistent author in Genesis, 
> Exodus and Numbers, and that he was a product of his ANE 
> environment, it makes this much easier to determine. Also, we know 
> the first temple had a throne room whereby Yahweh was believed to 
> make his presence. Why make a giant chair for something that 
> doesn't naturally sit?
> 
There was no throne room, nor throne, at 
least as described in Tanakh.

It certainly makes me wonder about the 
quality of the scholars you cite when they 
make such wild claims.

> ...
> 
> 
> They are celebrating their independance day here in Brazil. I'm off 
> to the parades for a couple days it seems. Have a great day.

Hope you enjoyed them.

Karl W. Randolph.

-- 
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