Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Jerry:

On Thu, Aug 23, 2012 at 5:14 PM, Jerry Shepherd <jshepherd53 AT gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi Karl,
>
> I'm going to come to George's side on this.  You say, "The Bible is not a
> science textbook, rather one that spoke in human terms, in the same way as
> modern, scientifically trained people still talk about “sunrise” and
> “sunset” and similar figures of speech. Just as those figures of speech in
> modern mouths do not code for a cosmological understanding, so, except for
> medievalists, we cannot take Biblical figures of speech as giving
> cosmological understanding."
>
> This just doesn't correspond with the biblical data.  Genesis 1, to be sure
> is not a scientific text, but it does seem to be reflective of ANE
> cosmology.


Oh? Many ANE cosmologies that I heard of start with pre-existing material,
Genesis 1 starts with nothing other than God creating ex-nihilo. ANE has
chaos, Biblical “lifeless (a word used of inanimate, human formed objects)
and still”. ANE often the physical universe made of parts of the gods,
Biblical separate from the creator God. I could go on. Sounds plenty
different to me.

This is not a scientific treatise, but a historical account.


>  In a passage like Ecc 1:5, "The sun rises and the sun sets, and
> hurries back to where it rises," there is no reason in the context to think
> that the author is referring to the rising and setting of the sun as a
> figure of speech.


And there is no reason to insist that it is not.


>  He believes the sun does rise, does set, and makes its
> way back under the earth to the eastern horizon where it will start the
> same cyle all over again.


It doesn’t say that in that verse, you’re adding to it. That’s eisegesis,
not exegesis.


>  When today we refer to sunrise, it is a figure
> of speech.  It was not for the ancients.
>

Where is your evidence? I know that was true for some of the religions, but
for those who believed the Bible (as much of it was written at that time),
this was a document that set itself up against those other religions, so
the evidence is actually against you.

>
> Blessings,
>
> Jerry Shepherd
> Taylor Seminary
> Edmonton, Alberta
>
> Jerry Shepherd
> jshepherd53 AT gmail.com
>

Karl W. Randolph.