Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>]

rolf, ishnian (george),

below i make four comments on your recent remarks.

Motto:

(following ted’s remark): the beginning of enuma elish. 

When the SKY ABOVE was not NAMED,
And the EARTH BENEATH did not yet bear a name,
And the primeval Apsû, who begat them,
And chaos, TIAMAT, the mother of them both,
(compare with adam and eve!)

Their WATERS were MINGLED together,
And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen;
(compare gen 1:9, 2:5)

When of the gods none had been CALLED INTO BEING
(compare with adam's naming of objects)

Common themes With gen 1: SKY, EARTH, CHAOS, TEHOM=TIAMAT, 
NOTHING=EFES=APSU=TOHU, WATER, SEPARATION OF WATER, NAMING. 
do we really need the experts' views to see the parallels?
--------------------

to rolf,

We all agree that the ancients viewed the skies as an empty expanse 
scattered with wind and clouds, with some lights high above, And 
gave them numerous "explaining" metaphors and mythological/metaphysical/pseudo
physical descriptions. Gen 1 fits in with these descriptions.

With this understanding, you state that $MYM and RQY( and skies And 
atmosphere and expanse and firmament are all one and the same. Which is
clearly the case today. Thus, under synchronic (late) interpretation, 
you are correct.
 
However, historically it can be argued that this linguistic 
Identification RQY(=$MYM  is entirely based on gen 1 (and/or similar 
mythological NWS texts) and was alinguistic innovation at the time. 
Even ishnian’s (i believe) Arabic analogue to RQY(  may be claimed to 
have derived from gen 1, historically.

>> Out of ccuriousness, I would like to ask  you which ancient writings  you
can refer to were  we find the idea of a solid vault above the earth with
water above this vault. 

let me add a small remark to martin shield’s interesting response (based
on material new to me):

the word RQY(  was understood at the time in this sense. However, I agree 
with ted, jerry and george that this was intended as a metaphore and 
was not necessarily interpreted as conferring any material property 
to the object described (skies). Archimedes, much later, might say here 
that god used a huge pulley to put up the skies in their place, and 
then we might ponder where the bible might put the pulley’s support.

>> De: "Ishinan" <ishinan AT comcast.net> 
Data: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 16:21:17 -0500 
>> rolf: Then bsack to Genesis 1.  In v. 8 we learn that God" called the RQY(
"heavens," as you also say. The word $MYM are used with different references
in Genesis. But this verse shows that there is no distinction between RQY( and
$SYM, and the words are interchangeable....

-----------------------------

to George (and maybe also rolf),

I see gen 1 as a describing a “model” of creation, as perceived at 
the time. Recall that a model is a “simplified version” of the real situation,
and I take it the ancients, ignorant as they were, understood it in this sense
and saw the sky basically as we see it: an open space. It appears that you go
one step further and see gen 1 as the REAL SITUATION 
as viewed at the time. I find it difficult to accept. People did see the birds
take off from the trees and houses and fly in the open air.

>> George attas:  I think you may have misunderstood me. The רקיע in Genesis 1
is given the name שׁמים (sky). We today, however, do not identify the 'sky' as
a רקיע over our heads. We conceive of the sky as open air. Thus, there is a
discrepancy between our concept of sky and the concept in Gen 1...

------------------------------
To ishnian,

The idea of the text was separation of waters (see also enuma elish above),
not a geometric statement. But yes, as George comments, imagination often 
precedes reality. See e.g. ezekiel’s visions of flying objects, noah's ark,
alijah's trip to heavens, jacob's ladder etc.

By the way, the hemisphere by itself is very ancient, and it appears in
pottery and metalwork. I suspect the image analogy used by the author of 
gen 1 was indeed taken from metal art and not civil engineering. Though martin
shields has a very pertinent point I was not aware of.

>>zigurat of babylon:

As is common in the middle east, things go out of proportion. Thus the
biblical tower of babel, going all the way to the sky, is so different 
from the original. again, this artifact in the story was not meant to 
describe correctly the tower of babel: it was meant as a model for the
migrations which created linguistic diversity.

>> GEORGE wrote: So in other words, the dome could not possibly have existed 
conceptually before Roman engineers actually built one? By that reasoning, 
the Tower of Babel must date to the 20th century when sky-scrapers were 
invented. 

>> ISHINAN:  Come on George, haven't you ever heard about the Yemenite 
skyscrapers which 
date from time immemorial in Arabia Felix? 
>> If not, please, I invite you to take a tour below :-) 
http://www.google.com/search?q=skyscrapers+of+yemen&hl=en&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=N8hGUPKhK
Enjoy ! Ishinan Ishbashi 

>>>martin: 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. 
Martin Shields, 

----------------------------

to ted, rolf,

many canaanite mythological figures bore cosmological names. i recall
here YM, $M$ and ENOK (related with Babylonian ENKI =sky-earth). 
i see TY)MT in the same light.

within ancient Hebrew (I think Isaac and karl will both agree), 
           THWM/HMM/TM/TMHWN/THH/THW/$WMM/Y$YMWN/
(maybe even YTWM=orphan) are all related, and describe a state of
emptiness/stupefaction/bewilderness in front of a vast and hostile 
space. I therefore suspect that both Hebrew THWM and Canaanite 
TY)MT come from a solid NWS common basis. 

>>> ted: Both tehom and Tiamat represent primordial waters that are split into
oceans and vapors. That similarity, in and of itself shows some that the two
creation traditions are at least distantly related. However EE is theogenic
(story of the creation of the gods) while Gen 1 is cosmogenic (story of the
creation of the physical world). 

Nir cohen