Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Shoshanna Walker <rosewalk AT concentric.net>]

OK, so I should not have used the word "lying".  But what does it 
mean when the Torah specifically says, in all that great detail about 
the chronology of the flood, that a year was 12 months, and then 
someone comes along and says, no, a year was 6 months?  Is that not 
implying that the Torah was lying when it said 12 months?

"In some cases" - is he saying that sometimes the Torah says one 
thing and sometimes another?  That the Torah is inconsistent?  In 
which case, it also would be lying some of the time?  In which case 
no one would know when it was lying and when it was not lying, so why 
bother spending so much time trying to study it?

Shoshanna Walker




Shoshanna,

While I think that Jim's theory does not work, he does NOT claim that the
Torah is "lying". All he is sayng is that the word "shanah" in the Torah
might refer, in some cases, to a six-month period, just like the word "yom"
can refer to either a 24-hour period or to just the daylight hours. In his
view, this makes it easier to understand the Torah literally. You might not
agree (I don't), but the first paragraph of your post below, stating your
BELIEF in Chazal, is really a non-starter.

The second paragraph, about the two "new years", is of course perfectly
correct and has been stated several times.