attached mail follows:
Hi Dick,
You wrote:
<<In other words, those nations we know are related from what the Bible
says all spoke a Semitic tongue. The Sumerians, not referenced in Genesis,
had a language of their own. So it would be hard to argue any relatedness
from a common recent ancestor, like Noah, although intermarrying was
certainly likely as eventually the Sumerians were absorbed into the
Babylonian empire. Noah's wife could even have been Sumerian, who knows?>>
The sons of Japheth in Gen 10:2-5 spoke Indo-European. Mizraim, the son of
Ham (Gen 10:6) spoke Egyptian (I do not not know why they transliterated
instead of translated mizraim, but it is the Hebrew word for Egypt.). Heth,
the son of Ham (Gen10:15) spoke Hittite. These nations are related and did
not speak a Semitic tongue; so the Sumerians with their non-semitic tongue
could be related; and, my contention is that if the Hebrews had mentioned
them, they would have said they were related. But, my ultimate point is: The
Bible never says or implies they were not related. You are reading that into
the Bible.
"Probable" if one believes all mankind came from Noah. Let's start with the
first mention of "giants" in Gen. 6:4. "There were giants in the earth in
those
days ..."
The Hebrew word is "nephilim." Why did the Bible translators decide they
were "giants"? Why not "midgets"? There is nothing here to suggest size
at all.
The translators snuck a peek at Num. 13:33: "And there we saw the giants,
the
sons of Anak, which come of the giants (nephlim): and we were in our own
sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight." Knowing the sons of
Anak
were giants, and that they came from the Gen. 6 Nephilim provided the clue
to the
translators that the pre-flood nephilim were giants too, and thus the
translation
This is from The Expositor's Bible Commentary: "On the face of it, the
remark presents a problem to the view that only Noah and his sons survived
the
Flood, since it suggests that the "sons of Anak" were descendants of the
"Nephilim" (min hannepilim, lit. "from the Nephilim") who lived before the
Flood."
So unless Noah had some children before the flood besides the three we know
about, the Nephilim or their descendents survived the flood and spawned the
Anakim. The reason they are called "Canaanites" is not because they
descended from Canaan, Noah's grandson, but because they lived in the
Canaan valley.>>
The original text of Number 13:33 reads simply, "And there we saw the
Nephilim." Everything after that is a scribal addition, not found in the
LXX, and marked del(ete) in the Biblia Hebraica, ed. Kittel and Kahle
<< I think you have to ask why, when one word means both mountains and hills,
and one word means either land or earth, and one word means birds or flying
insects, and only one word denotes either heaven or sky; did they have two
words for "man"?>>
There are hundreds of synonyms in any language. Why did they have three
words for "gold"? You could ask those kinds of questions all day long, and
it would not prove anything.
I said,"Examples of people both descended from Adam and faithful to God but
called
"'ish" are: Noah (Gen 6:9) "...Noah was a righteous 'ish..."
to this, you said,
<No significance here. Which would I say to my brother? "Allan, you are a
good Fischer," or "Allan you are a good American," or "Allan, you are a good
man"? It depends on what I want to say. Bible writers did the same
thing.>>
I understood you originally to say that ''ish" was only used for people
either not descended from Adam or not faithful to God. If you are saying,
only sometimes is this true, then you have no logical biblical basis for a
distinction elsewhere.
Paul S.
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