Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kevin Graham" <kevlds AT hotmail.com>

> 
> == Similarly, CLM in Biblical Hebrew encompasses shapes that are 
> similar or representative to another object, an imperfect copy as 
> it were (made of gold in 1 Samuel 6) of which "shadow" is just one 
> variety of CLM.
> 
> Can you provide instances where "shadow" is to be prefered over the 
> "image" rendering?
> 
Psalm 23:4 is the most famous example, 
though there are several other examples of 
the feminine use grammaticized as referring 
to generalized shadows instead of specific 
ones.

> == Then we must also consider idiomatic use. E.g. Numbers 35:52 
> "you will make the shadows of their statues (used as idols) lost" 
> which would include not only getting rid of the idols themselves 
> (by melting down, burying, etc. so that they cast no shadows), but 
> also any small representation thereof that would be carried as an 
> amulet or put in a little shrine in a house.
> 
> I see no reason to translate this as "shadow" since "image" makes 
> perfectly good sense. I think you meant to cite Num 33:52, as 35:52 
> doesn't exist:
> 
> "then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from 
> before you, and destroy all their figured stones, and destroy all 
> their molten images, and demolish all their high places:"
> 
> Again, I fail to see the justification for "shadow" rendering in 
> this instance.
> 
You're right, the chapter is a typo.

But your translation is wrong. Look at the 
grammar, you've translated CLMY MSKTM as 
CLMYHM NSKYM.

> = So as I said before, strictly from a linguistic viewpoint, we 
> cannot make a claim that CLM )LHYM indicates that God had a 
> physical body.
> 
> Thus far this argument appears incoherent. Perhaps I'm missing the 
> forest for the trees. Jewish scholar Gershom Sholem cuts through 
> the ambiguity when he says the meaning of tselem, "refers to a 
> three-dimensional image or form."  Gershom Sholem, On the Mystical 
> Shape of the Godhead: Basic Concepts in the Kabbalah., 1991, 
> Schocken Books, 17. See also P. Humbert, who said Gen 1:26 means 
> "that humanity was created with the same physical form as the 
> deity, of which [it] is a moulded three-dimensional embodiment, 
> delineated and exteriorized'."(P. Humbert, Etudes sur le récit du 
> paradis et de la chute dans la Genèse [Neuchâtel: Secrétariat del' 
> Université, 1940], p. 157)

Now that you've started naming some of your 
sources, I've never heard of them before. 
Therefore I need to see their arguments, not 
just their names. And those arguments had 
better be better than calling a winged 
cherub a throne.

But looking at the context, the sources you 
name seem either to be modernists within the 
stream that grew up from Hellenism, or are 
dealing with Hellenized Judaism (oh yes, 
Platonism is just as much looking at forms 
as the rest of Hellenism, just that those 
forms are "spiritualized"). Your Hellenistic 
glasses are blinding you.

Karl W. Randolph.



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