Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ishinan" <ishinan AT comcast.net>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Rolf 
To: Ishinan 
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2012 11:24 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] ] A VISUAL EXPRESSION OF A THEOLOGICAL IDEA OF 
THESKY/HEAVEN ( Rolf's Response 2)


Dear Martin,

Thank you very much for the reference. The contents is available online, and 
I am familiar with several of the documents discussed, but not with others.  
I will read the book.


Best regards,


Rolf Furuli
Stavern
Norway



Onsdag 5. September 2012 16:32 CEST skrev bhebrew AT shields-online.net:


  Rolf,

  "And I am not aware of any writing from Assyrian or Babylonian times which 
indicate that the people of that time believed in a solid vault with water 
above. it seems that they had many cosmological ideas that paralles our 
modern ideas."

  Take a look at Horowitz's Babylonian Cosmic Geography. It includes numerous 
such texts, many of which depict a "firmament" made of stone (usually blue in 
colour, or else transparent with something blue above it). Similar ideas are 
evident in ancient Egyptian depictions of the cosmos. If anything, the 
evidence seems to point to the solid barrier above the atmosphere as being 
the default understanding of the cosmos in the ancient world.

  Regards,

  Martin Shields,
  Sydney, Australia.