Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Dear Ted,

You have made many good observations, and I do not think I should give more 
comments on the issue. But I would like to point out what the real issue is.  
And dear listmembers, please keep in mind that my comments below are 
descriptive and not normative. This means that I am observing and not arguing 
in favor of something.

The tenth commendmend (Exodus 20:17, "You shall not covet nour neighbor's 
house... wife.. etc") could only be enforced by a superhuman entity who could 
read the hearts of human beings." So it implies God. Throughout the Tanakh 
the writers claims that they got messages from God. Moses claims that he got 
the law from YHWH; Ezekiel claims that he got visions, and the prophets used 
to say, "Thus says YHWH." The claim of God's hand is found throughout the 
Tanakh. And similarly with the creation account in Genesis 1 and 2. No part 
of this account could have been seen by humans. So the implication is that 
the account was given the writer by God—it is a part of the law that Moses 
claimed came from YHWH.

Please note: I am not here arguing for anything, I just point out the real 
issue. This means that the creation account cannot be based on human 
observation, and therefore we cannot explain any part of it as such.  Either 
its origin is mythological, it is a guesswork by the writer, or it is given 
the writer by God. And here we have a real clash between the scientific 
method where metaphysics is excluded, and the Tanakh that is full of 
metaphysics—God is everywhere. The farthest a person can go while upholding 
the scientific methodology, is to ask whether we, on the basis ic lexicon, 
grammar and syntax and historical comparisons  can point out mythological 
elements in the creation accoun; or whether the whole account can be given an 
interpretation that accords with all we know about the earth and the 
universe. This is what I have done. And the result is that that clash is now 
between the creation account that in every detail literally accords with what 
we know about the earth and the universe and the scientific method that a 
priori excludes God.


Best regards,



Rolf Furuli
Stavern
Norway



Mandag 10. September 2012 18:28 CEST skrev 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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