To: George.Athas AT moore.edu.au, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] gen 28 sulam
Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2012 22:45:31 -0500 (EST)
George Athas:
You wrote:“I think סלם
meant 'elevator', because I can't see any other technology as being able to get
to the top of the sky in good time to enable divine messengers to be going up
and down on them all within the timeframe of a single vision.”
1.The Hebrews and
Canaan had no concept of technology similar to an elevator.
2.But more to the
point on the b-hebrew list, there is no Hebrew linguistic connection between SLM
and “elevator”.
The only way to “square the circle”, as it were, is to
consider the possibility that SLM may have been a foreign loanword into Hebrew
way back when.We begin to realize that
the Patriarchal narratives arer-e-a-l-l-yold.