Biblical Hebrew Forum

[TedBro AT aol.com]

Hi, All:
 
Members of this list have done a good bit of research on this issue,  
turning up some fresh ground. Much appreciated since I have studied this 
issue  
for 30 years and thought I had a handle on all the relevant texts and  
arguments.
 
Here's what I believe is clear and what the open issues are:
1) RQ( is a metallurgical term meaning beaten into a smooth surface. It is  
not clear to me that this implies, as someone wrote, that small bits are  
hammered into a plate, creating an analogy with droplets of water being 
hammered  into a hard surface.
 
2) One issue that has not been discussed is: How do we understand  
anthropomorphic descriptions of G-D in the Hebrew Bible? If YHWH has a 
physical  
body with eyes, nose, etc, then it would seem to follow that descriptions of 
God  as builder, erecting pillars, stretching out the measuring line, 
hammering, etc,  would tend to be intended as literal descriptions. 
Contrarily, if 
we see all  these terms as intended metaphors, then what is hammering when 
used to depict an  act of God? If there is no literal hammer, why would there 
need to be a literal  hammered surface?
 
3) Someone has suggested that (l pny must refer to a physical, touchable  
surface. Not sure why that follows. Since the birds appearing "in heaven", 
ditto  the stars, is a visual phenomenon, then it is not touching but seeing 
that is at  issue. When we look up, the sky does have an apparent surface. 
Could the HB  language be taking an observational perspective without intent 
to speculate on  what the sky is made of?
 
4) Since various Bible writers describe different substances that the sky  
is made of depending on weather, isn't it clear that they were not to 
concerned  with the substance of the sky or how it got from copper to 
turquoise to 
ice,  etc? 
 
5) This same question can be asked of other ANE texts. In one Egyptian text 
 the goddess Nut is depicted arched over the earth, fingertips on one 
horizon and  toes on the opposite horizon with stars on her belly. It is hard 
to 
see any of  these descriptions as ANYTHING but metaphor.
 
Regards,
Ted
 
 
In a message dated 9/9/2012 3:31:51 A.M. Central Daylight Time,  
George.Athas AT moore.edu.au writes:

None of  this gets around the basic exegetical fact: In Gen 1, the birds 
fly across the  surface of the רקיע, just like the spirit/wind hovers across 
the surface of  the waters. If it has a surface, it is perceived as 
something that could be  touched. That's what the text says.

Whether the ancients understood  this as a metaphor is another issue, but 
one which inevitably sees us  importing extra-textual considerations, into 
the equation. In other words, the  argument that the רקיע is not actually 
something that could be touched is  invariably a foray into tangential 
considerations that take us away from what  the writer of Gen 1 actually 
wrote.


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

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