Re: concordance & genesis (edited)

Hi, David,

> "D. F. Siemens, Jr." wrote:
> ...
> DS. There is a complication with "myth." In common parlance it implies
> falsity, which is how Bultmann uses it. Someplace I ran across the
> technical sense, as "a sacred story to be believed," with the
> suggestion that "mythos" be used for this in place of "myth." It was
> further noted that the Christian mythos, the birth, life, death,
> resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ, is also true,
> whereas other mythoi were historically false. The apocryphal tales you
> mention would have been mythoi to Gnostics, for example, but not to
> strict orthodoxy.

Well, such a distinction between myth and mythos might clarify matters.
It would be helpful if you (or George) could provide a definition of
"mythos" consistent with biblical theology and seen to reasonably apply
to certain biblical texts (and which ones?).
 
> ...
> > GM: Finally, the question is not just about literary forms but
> about the writers' use of the state of the art knowledge of the world
> of their time. The writer of Gen.1 wasn't just writing a story in
> which the sky was a dome - he thought it really was a dome. <
>
> From what I have said before, it should be clear that I think this is
> a
> false assumption. And even if, for discussion's sake, the writer
> thought
> it was a dome, the fact is that God prevented him from saying this.
> The
> text does _not_ claim it is a dome, as "expanse" is a perfectly
> reasonable translation of the Hebrew "raqia^".
>
> DS: I see a grave problem here. You get by with "expanse" only by
> neglecting the usage in the several places where it occurs in Genesis
> 1, let alone elsewhere.

If you combine a single word out of an interpretation with other bits
from contradictory interpretations of the same text, you of course get
nonsense. I still think the interpretation which Armin Held and I gave
in our 1999 PSCF paper and our letter in the Sept.2000 PSCF is
internally consistent if taken in context, and also consistent with the
biblical context (although Paul Seely would probably dispute every
single word of it).

> Since the root ties to "beaten out," the
> presumption is that _raquia^_ involves something that can be pounded
> into shape. This cannot be done with gas or liquid, though the former
> seems totally out of place in the ancient view. Some solids are too
> brittle, so something like a ductile metal is implicit. Of course, one
> can argue that figurative language can change root meanings. So this
> is not proof.

How about the root raqa^ (from which raqia^ is derived) used in Isaiah
42:5 for the land as well as the layer of vegetation covering it? Here,
there cannot be any pounding or hammering, but "spreading out" fits.
Similarly raq: (1) thin, slight, (2) a little, only; raqiq: flat bread.
 
> But note vv. 6f. There are waters under and above the firmament. This
> precludes _raquia^_ being space, though one may stretch matters to
> allow it as atmosphere. But there seems no way to make the upper
> waters into clouds, for clouds are _in_ the lower atmosphere.

Here, you are mixing in a (semi)scientific definition of "lower"
atmosphere. Instead, one should rather consider what the ancients would
have seen in this context: the mass of air they experienced as wind etc.
and the expanse they saw reaching up to the clouds. There is no conflict
between such a definition of "expanse" and the clouds being above it.

> Moving
> to vv. 14f, 17, the lights are _in_ (_be_) the firmament. Brown,
> Driver, Briggs specifically notes the idiom of "in the mountain," (p.
> 88a), where we have to say "on." The rational understanding of this is
> that the sun, moon and stars are stuck onto the firmament, above which
> there is water. What must be the nature of the firmament if celestial
> bodies are applied to it?

The lights, here ma'or, represent the (bundles of) light rays, the light
_sent out_, _received_ and _seen_. This very nicely fits into the
atmosphere. On the other hand, the _source_ of light would be called ner
or menorah. The light sources (stars incl. the sun) were created and
developed "in the beginning", not on day 4, because they belong to the
global entity called "the heavens and the earth", what we would call the
universe. "Sun, moon and stars" were not "stuck onto the firmament", but
the "light rays" were "given into the atmosphere" by "clearing the sky",
so that animals (like insects and birds) mentioned on day 5, as well as
later land animals and humans mentioned on day 6, could use them for
navigation, orientation etc., as the text specifies.

> Now consider v. 20. Birds fly above (_^al_)
> the earth and "across" (_^al_) the firmament ("across" is the
> translation in John Joseph Owens, _Analytical Key to the Old
> Testament_ (Baker), 1:4). BDB, p. 819a, gives "between the firmament
> and the earth." With water above it, stars stuck on it, and birds
> flying below it, your "expanse" cannot be anything we believe in.

With the natural "anthropomorphic" definition of raqia^ given above,
birds can very easily be seen to fly "on" the air of the atmosphere. It
is obvious to any observer that some fly higher, some lower, even
sometimes below one's one standpoint on a mountain, but all are
supported by the air. They fly "above" (^al) the earth and "on" (^al)
the air of the atmosphere - or "above" that part of it which supports
them when flying.

Peter

-- 
Dr. Peter Ruest, CH-3148 Lanzenhaeusern, Switzerland
<pruest@dplanet.ch> - Biochemistry - Creation and evolution
"..the work which God created to evolve it" (Genesis 2:3)