Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] lexicography, was physical attributes
Date: Thu, 08 Sep 2005 11:00:42 +0000
== Similarly, CLM in Biblical Hebrew encompasses shapes that are similar or
representative to another object, an imperfect copy as it were (made of gold
in 1 Samuel 6) of which "shadow" is just one variety of CLM.
Can you provide instances where "shadow" is to be prefered over the "image"
rendering?
== Then we must also consider idiomatic use. E.g. Numbers 35:52 "you will
make the shadows of their statues (used as idols) lost" which would include
not only getting rid of the idols themselves (by melting down, burying, etc.
so that they cast no shadows), but also any small representation thereof
that would be carried as an amulet or put in a little shrine in a house.
I see no reason to translate this as "shadow" since "image" makes perfectly
good sense. I think you meant to cite Num 33:52, as 35:52 doesn't exist:
"then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you,
and destroy all their figured stones, and destroy all their molten images,
and demolish all their high places:"
Again, I fail to see the justification for "shadow" rendering in this
instance.
= So as I said before, strictly from a linguistic viewpoint, we cannot make
a claim that CLM )LHYM indicates that God had a physical body.
Thus far this argument appears incoherent. Perhaps I'm missing the forest
for the trees. Jewish scholar Gershom Sholem cuts through the ambiguity when
he says the meaning of tselem, "refers to a three-dimensional image or
form." Gershom Sholem, On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead: Basic Concepts
in the Kabbalah., 1991, Schocken Books, 17. See also P. Humbert, who said
Gen 1:26 means "that humanity was created with the same physical form as the
deity, of which [it] is a moulded three-dimensional embodiment, delineated
and exteriorized'."(P. Humbert, Etudes sur le récit du paradis et de la
chute dans la Genèse [Neuchâtel: Secrétariat del' Université, 1940], p. 157)