Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

James:

I would like to see the details before making a decision. The first one
sounds plausible. Is there any evidence from other MSS to back it up?
Anything from the DSS?

As for the anthropomorphisms of God, I don’t know of anyone who considered
them to be a description of physical attributes. Therefore they didn’t cause
a problem.

Karl W. Randolph.

On Thu, Nov 19, 2009 at 2:07 AM, James Christian
<jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>wrote:

> In such cases of this type I would be suspicious of the change. The basis
> of the change is that it conflicts with their theology and should probably
> be better viewed as a corruption rather than a correction. If some were to
> get their way they would alter verses referring to God's 'hands', 'feet' etc
> as it conflicts with their idea of God. Obviously, God doesn't have physical
> hands and feet as we think of them and it is unlikely that the original
> authors believed he did but yet didn't have a theological problem with
> referring to them.
>
> James Christian
>
> 2009/11/17 K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
>
>> Thanks, Petr:
>>
>> It is my understanding that these are textual witnesses.
>>
>> I did see a discussion of the first one, Genesis 18:22, where the change
>> was
>> noted and why: the original had the Lord standing before Abraham. But the
>> Masoretes concluded that the inferior stands before the superior, that
>> it’s
>> not merely a spacial statement, therefore they changed the verse to say
>> that
>> Abraham stood before the Lord. But I don’t have any information about the
>> other passages.
>>
>> Karl W. Randolph.
>>
>