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  • From: "JAMES CHRISTIAN READ" <JCR128 AT student.apu.ac.uk>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Circularity and other issues of logic
  • Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 17:37:21 +0100

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





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