Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>]

Karl,

Of course, if על modifies something that is immaterial, that thing is going 
to be immaterial. No argument there. But it's not saying very much. The 
question is whether or not רקיע refers to something material or not. I could 
use your logic here to say that because the wind/spirit hovers על פני תהום 
('over the surface of the deep') that the תהום is immaterial. But that's 
simply not the case. So your arsenal of examples don't actually accomplish 
very much here.

Your insistence that because רקע can refer to immaterial things (something 
I'm not quite convinced of just yet), the רקיע is therefore not material, is 
simply an example of totality transfer fallacy. It's like saying that because 
פנים refers to a person/identity (something immaterial), all occurrences of 
פנים are immaterial. It's just not the case. So you haven't closed the 
logical loop here. And I'm ignoring medieval cosmology, so you should too — 
it's a distraction here. The fact that you are going there to support your 
disagreement with my position means nothing. This is about reading the Hebrew 
texts.

You still have not demonstrated your position. I'm happy to be convinced I'm 
wrong on the material nature of the רקיע, but I haven't seen any conclusive 
or even suggestive evidence to that effect. All I've seen is distracting 
tangents leading nowhere. It makes me suspect that asserting the immaterial 
nature of the רקיע may be the result of wanting to read modern-day cosmology 
back into the Bible in order to support a particular kind of inerrantist 
perspective. I can't be sure of that, of course (you can confirm or deny it), 
but that's what it sounds like to me. The evidence just doesn't seem to be 
there, so it doesn't seem to be reading the texts on their own merit.


GEORGE ATHAS
Dean of Research,
Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au)
Sydney, Australia