Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 07/09/2005 17:19, Kevin Graham wrote:

> 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.
>
> == 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. ...


I refer to interpretations from Hellenistic and later times, including 
LXX, which, if I remember correctly, you yourself referred to as holding 
to a metaphorical interpretation. Indeed you allude to this below. There 
are also arguments close to this in "Deutero"-Isaiah.

> ... 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. ...


No, this is not my argument. But I am arguing that words for body parts, 
whether of humans and animals, inanimate objects, or gods, are used very 
widely in metaphorical senses in Hebrew, in fact often far more often 
than they are literally. Look at PANIM "face". How often is it used 
literally? And how often non-literally, if you include forms like LIPNEY?

> ... 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 ...


What? The poetic structure of Genesis 1 is widely recognised.

> ... or the Sinai experience.
>
> == If an object is moving, it has a back which can be followed 
> literally. And if it can be followed metaphorically, it has a 
> metaphorical back.
>
> The more you try to push this with could-have would-have should-have 
> scenarios, the more you add into the text something that isn't there. 
> Sorry, but front and back are not determined through movement unless 
> we're dealing with an object that cannot move backwards withough 
> turning. ...


So your car does not have a back end, because it has a reverse gear? 
This is nonsense! A perfectly spherical moving object still has a back, 
which is the part of it which happens to be at the back - well, I'm sure 
what you mean but I can't describe it without using words like "back" 
because that is the standard way that language describes such things.

> ... Further, the "Glory of God" has been witnessed according to the 
> Bible(Ex 24:17; Num 14:22; Deut 5:24 ). So what was it that would 
> actually KILL someone if not a literal face?


Why should a literal face kill anyone? This is clearly some kind of 
metaphor or extended meaning, because literally seeing a face cannot be 
fatal. Don't forget that the "face" of God is used an overwhelmingly 
large proportion of times in expressions like LIPNEY which cannot 
possibly be literal.

> == Indeed in many languages the word for "follow" is literally 
> something like "go at the back of". In fact something like that is 
> true of Hebrew; although RDP can mean "follow" (Jdg 3:28), phrases 
> like HLK )AXAR are commonly used, in both literal (e.g. Ruth 2:9) and 
> metaphorical (e.g. Gen 41:30, Ex 23:2, Deut 13:3,5 (English vv.2,4)) 
> senses. Years don't have backs either (Gen 41:30), but they do have an 
> )AXAR which can be followed. So do gods, and God, but surely you don't 
> consider Deut 13:4 to mean that God has a literal back!
>
> I'll look forward to your list of scholarly commentary supporting your 
> hypothesis. In the meantime the plain reading of the text makes 
> perfect sense.


This is not hypothesis, this is established fact! If you disagree, 
please explain to me how you interpret the verses above.

Try this plain reading of the text: "And he shall slaughter the young 
bull to the face of YHWH" (Leviticus 1:5) etc etc. Is the face of YHWH 
inside the tabernacle? If so, why isn't the offerer killed?

> ...
>
> == He does, I just didn't bother to quote that part. Actually he 
> quotes one counter-example in which all Egyptians are so described. 
> Read the whole article.
>
> I wish I could. I'm in Brazil at the moment. Would you mind telling me 
> what example he provided? I'm thinking it might be the same one Clines 
> and Westermann mentioned, but they were in agreement that it was too 
> ambiguous to make that conclusion. Then again, my memory could be 
> failing me.


The example Van Leeuwen quoted is from the 10th dynasty "Instruction 
Addressed to King Merikare", quoted from Lichtheim, AEL 1:106. Here is 
an extract: "Well tended is mankind - god's cattle... They are his 
images, who came from his body..."

> == Thank you for these snipped snippets. They are indeed helpful.
>
> You're very welcome.
>
> == I am happy with "God is recurrently spoken of in the Old Testament 
> as if he were a human being", and that he chooses to reveal himself in 
> some kind of human form. The question is I suppose how far this was 
> believed to be the reality of God.
>
> Indeed it is. The majority of scholars, I believe, support my argument 
> that this was in fact the popular belief in Ancient Israel; though 
> they would probably also agree that it eventually became the 
> antithesis to the would-be official religion.


Well, when is their "eventually"? I would accept that this was popular 
belief - indeed it still is now, for people think of God as an old man 
sitting on a cloud. But I still see a sign of that old racism in the 
conclusion that it was not the original official religion, a suggestion 
that somehow such things could not be understood in earlier times.

> == 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, and this is precisely why the LXX translators decided to save 
> themselves the touble of having to explain them by simply deleting them.


Well, I haven't seen any which cannot be explained this way, although of 
course many are somewhat ambiguous. Walking eyes, fatal faces etc: this 
is the stuff of metaphor, or of extended non-literal senses of words.

> == 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, ...


Well, I don't assume this. Of course to some extent he was, but his 
background was Israelite as well as Egyptian, and the Israelites had 
very likely developed a distinctive religious outlook over many 
centuries - or perhaps one in common with desert tribes like the 
Midianites, among whom Moses lived for perhaps forty years, distinct 
from the well known theology of the great empires.

> ... 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?


Who says it was a giant chair? Well, YHWH was certainly metaphorically 
enthroned, although in English "enthroned" does not mean that the 
monarch is literally sitting on the throne at that time, and a suitable 
symbol for that was a throne. Anyway, the "mercy seat" was not all that 
giant, so your hypothesis suffers from uncertainties of scale.

> ...
> == We know that the terms were used metaphorically elsewhere, as well 
> as literally.
>
> Sure, for example, "face" is used to refer to the "face" of the earth, 
> the "face" of the deep, and "face" was often understood as being in 
> front of something. But when we see the text refer to Moses speaking 
> to God "fac to face," it is hard to assume this as metaphor without 
> applying the same to Moses. If this means God doesn't necessarily have 
> a face, then it must mean Moses didn't have a face either. ...


This is nonsense. The expression "face to face" is used in English with 
non-literal senses, such as "Face to face with chronic disease", the 
title of http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/new/2005/nw05/en/. And very 
likely its Hebrew equivalent could be. Would you argue from this 
expression that chronic disease has a face, or that if it does not it 
implies that the person who comes face to face with it doesn't have a 
face either?

> ... Further, the text says they spoke to the Lord face to face and 
> they saw Him "eye to eye"(Numbers 14:14). Was this an idomatic 
> expression similar to modern English? Meaning, that it simply means 
> they were in agreement?
>
> Jeremiah 32:4; 34:3 might shed some light on this: "Zedekiah king of 
> Judah will not escape out of the hand of the Chaldeans, but he will 
> surely be given into the hand of the king of Babylon, and he will 
> speak with him face to face and see him eye to eye...you will see the 
> king of Babylon eye to eye, and he will speak with you face to face."
>
> The meaning behind each phrase is evident. “Face to face” is in the 
> context of a verbal conversation while “eye to eye” is in the context 
> of a visual encounter. Face can refer to inanimate objects such as 
> water or earth, but the phrase “eye to eye” only applies to things 
> which have eyes. From this perspective, it logically follows that the 
> Lord has eyes and most likely, a face as well.


"Eye", `ayin, can also refer to inanimate objects. Even if we leave 
aside the meaning "spring", the earth has one (Exodus 10:5), manna and 
bdellium have them (Numbers 7:7), a fire has one (Ezekiel 1:4), wine has 
one (Proverbs 23:31). More to the immediate point, `ayin commonly means 
"opinion" or "knowledge", and has many other non-literal uses. `ayin 
be`ayin is not a very common phrase, but in Isaiah 52:8 it is probably 
metaphorical rather than suggesting that the watchmen will themselves 
see YHWH.

> == Well, an alternative is that the LXX translators, like many modern 
> scholars, were so literal-minded that they didn't recognise metaphors 
> (metaphorically) staring them in the face.
>
> I don't think this holds up becase teh changes went both ways 
> (metaphor to literal and literal to metaphor). Scholars are in 
> agreement that these changes were theologically motivated.
>
> For example, Gen 3:8-10 in the KJV reads that Adam and Eve heard, “the 
> voice [qol] of the LORD God walking in the garden.” Clearly a voice 
> cannot walk, but this is cleared up with a critical examination of the 
> Hebrew qol, which is more properly translated as “sound.” The change 
> makes all the difference in the world. This correction is made in the 
> Revised Standard Version for a reason: “And they heard the sound of 
> the LORD God walking in the Garden.” An audible sound of someone or 
> something walking implies actual walking - without metaphorical 
> allusion - however this is not established from the traditional 
> reading of the Old Testament. ...


In other words, the RSV translators correctly understood that "voice" is 
not an anthropomorphism but here has an extended, originally 
metaphorical sense "sound".

> ... Here some more examples...
>
> Dt 32:10 “His eye” Dt 1:45, Num 11:1 “in the ears of Jehovah”
>
> LXX: “of an eye.” LXX: “before the lord.”


Deut 32:10 is an explicit simile.

Deut 1:45 does not have “in the ears of YHWH", although it does have "to 
the face of YHWH" which is of course correctly translated in LXX as 
"before the Lord".

Numbers 11:1: as with "voice" meaning "sound", "ears" here means 
"hearing". Yes, YHWH can hear, and see, but that does not imply literal 
eyes and ears. LXX gives a good translation into Greek, because "in the 
ears of" may not be a good Greek idiom.

> Ex 15:8 “blast of nostrils” Dt 33:10 “they put incense before thy nose.”
>
> LXX: “through the wind of my wrath.” LXX “shall lay incense in thine 
> anger.”


"Nose" or "nostrils" ('ap, 'appayim) are commonly used in Hebrew in the 
extended sense "anger". See 
http://englishbibles.blogspot.com/2005/08/does-god-have-long-nose.html 
for something I recently wrote about this. This is correctly rendered in 
LXX by a Greek word for "anger".

> Num 12:8 “mouth to mouth” Ex 24:10 “they saw the God of Israel”
>
> LXX: “mouth to mouth apparently” LXX: “they saw the place”


Numbers 12:8: there is no word "apparently" in the Rahlfs edition of 
LXX. Is this a reading from some individual MS?

Exodus 24:10 does look like avoidance of anthropomorphism, but there is 
no mention of body parts in either version, and we have little idea what 
they saw.

> 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.
And you!


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/



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