Re: [asa] The Hebrew for the Making of Man

The New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew-English Lexicon, p. 1039,
lists the root for the sun and the languages where it is found. Then it
says that a related term in Sabean is a goddess. It later notes, under
the Hebrew term, references to worship of the sun, moon and stars in II
Kings 23:5; Jeremiah 8:2; Ezra 8:16; Deuteronomy 4:19.
Dave (ASA)

On Fri, 01 Feb 2008 05:07:29 -0500 philtill@aol.com writes:
Do you have specific etymologies in mind for names of pagan sun and moon
gods in the surrounding countries, and how they relate to the Hebrew
words for sun and moon?

Without that it is not a viable theory because Moses was willing to talk
about all the other things mistaken for divinities in Genesis 1. He
discussed sea monsters, which were divinities, the ocean, which was a
divinity, the sky, which was a divinity, the animals, which were
divinities, the land, which was a divinity, etc. Why did he only avoid
the Hebrew word for sun and moon but not all the others? In fact, the
sea and sky were the main two divinities in the Sumerian mythology. I
know less about Egyptian mythology, but I know at least that the sea was
a god in the Egyptian pantheon.

Phil

-----Original Message-----
From: d.nield@auckland.ac.nz
To: philtill@aol.com
Cc: dfsiemensjr@juno.com; dopderbeck@gmail.com; asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 4:13 am
Subject: Re: [asa] The Hebrew for the Making of Man

Phil wrote:
Moses was clearly using ANE ideas, but
> his intentional choice to avoid the Hebrew words for "sun" and "moon"
> imply some sophistication that exceeded the origins of ANE mythology
from
> several millenia earlier.
>
I now point out that a much simpler explanation is that the writer of
Genesis was merely avoiding the usual words for Sun and Moon because the
Sun and Moon were associated with divinities in the countries
neighbouring
Israel.
Don

More new features than ever. Check out the new AOL Mail!

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Fri Feb 1 17:24:22 2008