Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Yitzhak:
 If we have two documents, and we can
definitely date one a thousand years earlier than the second,
this provides evidence that the first one is the older account
or document.
END QUOTE

JCR: I'm sorry to have to disagree with you so 
directly as your reasoning usually follows a strict
degree of logic, however, I have to strongly agree with
Karl here as all the above observation proves is that
the Babylonians chose to write their version on more
durable materials. 
The major difference between Enuma Elish and Genesis 1 
is that Genesis 1 happens to belong to a larger body of 
text which has painstakingly supplied the generations 
that link all the way back to mankind's first father. 
Enuma Elish provides no such clues as to the origin of 
its information and so the internal evidence suggests 
that Genesis 1 may well be as old as mankind itself 
and have been passed down through the generations that 
were so painstakingly recorded.

Yitzhak:
There is no circularity.  Even without knowing that Yam
was a chaotic sea god in Ugarit and that Tehom is
"divinized" or "mythologized" in Ugarit as well, and even
without recognizing that Yam is used in the name
Abiyam in a context that suggests Yam is a deity, we
would be justified in suggesting that Isaiah 51:9-10
is refering to Yam and Tehom in a mythologic and divine
context.
END QUOTE

JCR: Again. I'm sorry to disagree but it *is* circular.
We are going round and round in a never ending circle 
of reasoning. You have observed that other cultures 
have deified Yams and Tehoms and impose that 
on the tanakh while the tanakh itself refutes their 
existence categorically. We ask you to provide an 
unambiguous reference to a divine tehom in the tanakh 
and you pluck a parallel out of the text which seems 
to be clearly talking about water paralleled with more 
water and interpret this as divine because other 
polytheistic cultures viewed these concepts as divine. 
Following such a technique I could propose a divinised 
theory for just about single word in the entire tanakh. 
But what you need to present in order to break this 
never ending circle is to actually present a specific 
and explicitly unambiguous divinised reference to 
Tehom in the tanakh.

Yitzhak:
An example of a circular argument would go something
like "All instances of the word Yam in the Bible speak
of the sea as an element of nature, and nothing more.
Therefore, the few instances that may be suggested
through parallelism etc to be otherwise are also the
use of the sea as an element of nature and nothing
more."
END QUOTE

JCR: Presented in such a way it can seem like circular 
reasoning but in reality it really isn't that simple. 
The tanakh presents itself as a document which rejects 
foreign gods and doctrines. It paints its god as a 
creator and controller of all nature including the seas. 
In fact, one of its god's trademarks seems to be the 
recurrent theme of bending the waters to his will both 
to save his people and to destroy his enemies. 
When a contraversial claim is made that Tehom is 
a divine reference it is right to go and see how Tehom 
is used in the tanakh to see how the hebrews understood 
and used the word. In a case such as this where the 
divine Tehom theory both contradicts tradition, 
internal linguistic evidence, internal doctrinal  
evidence and has not even one unambiguous reference to 
support it then the oweness of the proof tends to fall 
in the direction of the one making the contraversial 
claims.

The very verse we are talking about is a description 
of the state of the earth after elohim's initial 
creation act. Interpreting tehom as its physical entity 
is not only in harmony with general bible doctrine but 
with the flow of the verse itself. What kind of flow 
would the following have?

'The land was unformed and empty (oh and by the way 
there was also a pagan god named Tehom lurking around 
in the dark whom we are never going to mention again,
 oh, anyway let's get back to the description) 
and Elohim's breath was flying about over the waters.'

It wouldn't make any sense. Neither linguistically nor 
contextually. Tehom as a physical body of water fits 
the context perfectly and the internal linguistic 
evidence of the tanakh shows that Tehom is often used 
as a parallel to other bodies of water and never 
explicitly and unambiguously divinised. It is therefore 
perfectly reasonable to conclude that Tehom references 
are not divine until further evidence comes to light.

James C. Read
UK









 in harmony with general bible doctrine but 
with the flow of the verse itself. What kind of flow 
would the following have?

'The land was unformed and empty (oh and by the way 
there was also a pagan god named Tehom lurking around 
in the dark whom we are never going to mention again,
 oh, anyway let's get back to the description) 
and Elohim's breath was flying about over the waters.'

It wouldn't make any sense. Neither linguistically nor 
contextually. Tehom as a physical body of water fits
the context perfectly and the internal linguistic
evidence of the tanakh shows that Tehom is often used
as a parallel to other bodies of water and never
explicitly and unambiguously divinised. It is therefore
perfectly reasonable to conclude that Tehom references
are not divine until further evidence comes to light.

James C. Read