On Sat, 17 Jun 2006, Dick Fischer wrote:
> Hi Phil, you wrote:
>
> >>Perhaps the strongest argument is the mist that rises from the ground
> to water the whole earth in Gen.2. Mark Futato has argued very
> persuasively in his papers in the Westminster Theological Journal that
> this is a reference to the beginnings of normal rain .<<
>
> The Septuagint says a "fountain" rose up which is a direct reference to
> irrigation. The "fountains of the deep" refers to the irrigation works
> in Sumer that were overflowed at the time of the flood. The Hebrew word
> for "deep" can mean the sea, it can refer to subterranean waters, or it
> can mean the depths of a river. In the Atrahasis epic, the phrases
> "fountains of the deep" or "fountain of the deep" appear four times. In
> all instances, fountain(s) pertain to "fields," as in this example:
>
The word in Genesis 2:6 that the Septuagint translates as fountain has
been variously translated in our English versions as mist or streams. This
suggests that the translators were just guessing at the meaning. In the OT
this word occurs only here and in Job 36:27, where it has something to do
with the production of rain.
Gordon Brown
Department of Mathematics
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0395
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Received on Sun Jun 18 20:42:24 2006
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.8 : Sun Jun 18 2006 - 20:42:24 EDT