Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

John wrote:

>I'm not talking about the?mathematical notion of infinity. I'm simply
>talking about the idea of time continuing forever.

Yes, I did understand that point. It is hard for us to get to grips
with what ancient people understood at times. I said in conclusion
``(WLM cannot be taken to mean an infinite amount of time, just
indefinitely long.'' The difficult part is to understand how something
could not be finite yet not infinite. So when you asked

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

In one sense, sure, the opposite of finite time is infinite time
but that doesn't do justice to what the Hebrews understood. If
I may be permitted to make another detour to the Greeks, Euclid
proved (in our language) that there were an infinite number
of primes. But the question is -- what did Euclid understand
by his proof? That's really hard to say because to us we are
no longer grappling with understanding infinities. We throw
infinities around with gleeful abandon without giving them a second
thought. How could he frame a proof in which infinity makes an
appearance and yet not only not understand infinity but have no
concept of infinity?

So when considering what (WLM might mean, we can take
the easy way out and just take it to mean infinite time or eternity
or forever of something similar when it seems that's what's meant.
But there's the problem -- their way of thinking is so different
to ours we may not really understand what they were saying at all.
I have read somewhere, the source eludes me, that way back it meant
``to the horizon''. If you wanted to measure the distance to the
horizon, restricting yourself to their tools and world view, you
could not do it. It is always further away.

I hope that clarifies rather than confuses.

Bill Rea, Ph.D. ICT Services, University of Canterbury \_
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