Hi Gordon,
You said
<< In modern physics motion is defined in such a way as to make the laws of
physics expressible in very simple form. It doesn't seem to me to be sound
exegesis of an OT passage to insist on this modern interpretation of the
vocabulary used.
Here is another example of the same point. In Daniel 3:19 we are told that
Nebuchadnezzar ordered the furnace to be made seven times hotter than
usual. Should we take a modern interpretation of these words and insist
that its temperature was seven times as high in degrees Kelvin? It seems
unlikely that this was the author's original intent since he probably had
no concept of absolute zero.
>>
I agree with your point in Daniel, especially since "seven times hotter" is
probably figurative for "as hot as possible." But, I do not understand your
saying that my interpretation of the passages in Psalms and Eccl is a modern
interpretation. In fact, I see my interpretation as resisting the temptation
to modernize. In the ANE, as illustrated in Eccl 1:5, people believed that
the sun literally moved around a stationary earth. The universe was not
heliocentric, but geocentric. One would not be interpreting these passages in
their historical context but rather in a modern context if the language is
interpeted as anything less than literally geocentric.
Paul S.
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