At 10:45 AM 15/03/02 -0600, Don Perrett wrote:
>Regarding the idea of how the people of the OT saw there world, nature this
>is, can anyone say for certainty whether Genesis was written based upon the
>views of the day, or were the views of the day based upon their
>interpretation of the text itself? If one accepts that the text was given by
>God then the text is as it stands regardless of human fallibility to
>discover it's meaning. This of course means that while the people of the
>time may have had their own understanding this alone did not make them
>right.
>
>Good Morning to all!
>Don P
Wait a minute now. What kind of literature is Gen. 1- 11? Besides try to
understand what the first hearers understood. Besides, in Hebrew as in
most languages one has different understandings of literature, "Science"
did not really exist 6000 years ago, but in order to make sense, God would
have to talk in a language the people understood.
Besides, do we know Hebrew so thoroughly, that we know for sure that a word
like "ruach" must sometimes be read as "wind", at other times as "breath"
at other times as "spirit" ? Or "nephesh" in one chapter as "life" and in
the next as "soul"? Specially when "nephesh" is said to be blood in
another place. (Then think of Revelation where the altar receives the
blood of the martyrs. I have my doubts that the translation there is quite
right.
In our translating into English we are guide by our understanding of how
"man' is put together. In that respect we may be very much influenced by
Greek thinking.
Jan
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