Biblical Hebrew Forum

["JAMES CHRISTIAN READ" <JCR128 AT student.apu.ac.uk>]

Yitzhak wrote:
And by the way, the name of the planet Jupiter *is* a refernce
to the Roman god of the same name!  Actually, the moons of
Jupiter, such as Io or Europa, are references to the Roman
and Greek mythology.  Jupiter itself may very well *be* the
Roman god of the same name.
END QUOTE

But to suggest that a scientist was intentionally 
referring to a Roman god when it is blatantly obvious 
from the context that he is merely referencing the 
planet in our solar system would be ludicrous to the 
extreme. Could it not be a similar ludicrousy is being 
applied to the coincidence of the appearance of tehom 
in the Genesis 1?

Yitzhak wrote:
The words London, Heaven, Hell, Paradise are all proper
names.  They are proper names of places rather than
beings.  So I suppose you could say that Tehom is a
proper name of a place or a location in the cosmos from
the point of view of Creation.  That may lead to an
investigation of the word Tehom itself -- Does Tehom
describe a place, and how would we know a name of a
place when we see one?  That is, we know that the words
Sodom or Jerusalem are names of places.  But which clues
in the text would lead us to know that these are names of
places?  That is probably a nice and interesting question,
but it's not necessary to go into it.
END QUOTE

JCR: The imagery at this point in the text is of a 
water covered land with no seas or oceans and the 
heavens (sky/space) above. As the separate oceans 
have not yet been formed there is one unified body of 
water that covers the whole land, Tehom. As there is 
only one body of water it breaks no rules of grammar 
to assign it the proper noun Tehom just as there is 
only one Jerusalem where David and Solomon ruled.

Yitzhak wrote:
The other various arguments you use -- that Tehom is
not personified in any other way, that Tehom is not mentioned
again, Tehom is not killed nor split up in the account -- are
not really useful, since part of the claim is that this is a
modified account that used foreign, sometimes "idolatrous,"
concepts as a basis upon which to build a "monotheistic"
account.  It is thus possible that all obvious references to the
"non-monotheistic" parts have been edited out.  
END QUOTE

JCR: But what you have just said goes to prove that 
the author of Genesis 1 had no problems with using the 
word Tehom as a proper noun. That is to say, that he 
was so confident that his use of Tehom was the correct 
way to refer to the primordial body of water that he 
had no care (or perhaps even knowledge) that the 
Babylonian cognate was used as the name of a goddess 
that represented that very same body of salty water, 
just as our modern day scientist has little care that 
the Romans once worshipped a god named Jupiter as he is 
quietly confident that his audience will understand 
that he talking about the planet and when he pens his 
words the very thought that he will be one day 
confused as referencing the Roman god of the same name 
does not even enter into his head as the very idea 
would seem to ridiculous in the context he is writing 
in.

Yitzhak wrote:
So these are not independent arguments, and it's
probably best to drop "Tehom is not mentioned again".
END QUOTE

JCR: Please don't be so hasty to write them all off. 
What about the most significant of them all?

d) The very phrase in which Tehom appears is otherwise
 a description of the lifeless and unformed state of the
 heavens and the earth after elohim's initial act of
 creation

Would it not seem a little strange and out of context 
to reference a foreign god slap band in the middle of 
what is otherwise a description of the 'formless and 
waste' aftermath of the initial act of creation?



James C. Read
UK

































 in the context he is writing 
in.

Yitzhak wrote:
So these are not independent arguments, and it's
probably best to drop "Tehom is not mentioned again".
END QUOTE

JCR: Please don't be so hasty to write them all off.
What about the most significant of them all?

d) The very phrase in which Tehom appears is otherwise
 a description of the lifeless and unformed state of the
 heavens and the earth after elohim's initial act of
 creation

Would it not seem a little strange and out of context
to reference a foreign god slap