Biblical Hebrew Forum

[TedBro AT aol.com]

George:
 
Actually I wrote my Senior Thesis on physical cosmology in the Hebrew  
Bible. Discussion of whether the contextual intent of רקיע is literal  
description or metaphor was a central theme of the paper... same with  
"floodgates", "pillars of the earth" etc. 
 
Although it is possible that the D concept of sky might have been  
different from the P concept, the following text might be worth  
considering...
 
Deuteronomy 28:22 The LORD shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a  
fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the  
sword, and with blasting, and with mildew; and they shall pursue thee until 
thou  perish.
 
28:23 And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth  
that is under thee shall be iron.
 
28:24 The LORD shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust: from heaven 
 shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed.
 
 If the sky becomes metal at times of drought, aren't we dealing with  a 
metaphor, where metal sky is used to illustrate the shutting out of the rain? 
 
Similarly, we find descriptions of the sky as an icy sheet in Ezekiel, as a 
blue  turquoise pavement, etc. When these various descriptions are taken as 
a whole,  shouldn't we best imagine the authors of the texts viewing all 
these  descriptions, including  רקיע , as metaphor?
 
It seems to me that there are two interpretive errors to be avoided, the  
first obviously is imposing modern views on the ancient text. The second is 
to  avoid overshooting the mark and imposing scientific errors on  the text 
in our effort to avoid the first.
 
Peace,
Ted Brownstein
 
 
 

 
 
In a message dated 8/30/2012 9:15:22 P.M. Central Daylight Time,  
George.Athas AT moore.edu.au writes:

I think  you'll find the root רקע refers to 'spreading out' in the same 
sense as one  hammers out gold plaiting onto a wooden object or panel. The 
רקיע, just going  by the morphology of the noun, suggests something that is 
spread out in the  same way, like the gold in the example I just gave. The 
sky 
is evidently not  conceived of as an emptiness or ether, but rather as a 
hard thing that has  been spread out in this 'hammering out' kind of way.

Yes, there are  other words that mean to beat in repetitive manner, like 
כתת. But they are in  some way synonymous or have overlapping semantic 
domains, even as they each  have specific exclusive nuances. The root כתת has 
the 
sense of beating or  crushing down in order to pulverise into small pieces. 
The idea of רקע is to  beat something out in a particular shape—not to 
pulverise into  pieces.


GEORGE ATHAS
Dean of  Research,