Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Bill Rea <bsr15 AT cantsl.it.canterbury.ac.nz>]

John asked:

>See Psalms 41:14, 90:2, 103:17, and 106:48.?? Isn't God to be blessed
>forever?

and

>Thanks for clarifying.? So you wouldn't consider "infinite time" to mean
>something opposite of "finite time"???

There is a problem with applying modern terminology to ancient
writings. The Hebrews did not leave us with anything that could be
considered a detailed mathematical text. So what did they know or
understand about mathematics? The question is unanswerable. If we
look at other civilizations their understanding of ``infinity''
doesn't exist. The Greeks did not have either a zero or an
infinity. You can look up Zeno's paradox, for example here

http://www.mathacademy.com/pr/prime/articles/zeno_tort/index.asp

To solve the paradox you need *both* zero and infinity. So
when you ask ``So you wouldn't consider "infinite time" to mean
something opposite of "finite time"???'' you are applying our
understanding to writings where there is no evidence they understood
the concept of infinity. (WLM cannot be taken to mean an infinite
amount of time, just indefinitely long.

Bill Rea, Ph.D. ICT Services, University of Canterbury \_
E-Mail bill.rea AT canterbury.ac.nz                       </   New
Phone 64-3-364-2331, Fax  64-3-364-2332               /)  Zealand
Unix Systems Administrator                           (/'