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

You're failing to note that only languages from the same family, or those
which borrowed a term, would used the same name. Additionally, there were
no capital letters in the ancient scripts to differentiate the names of
deities from the names of objects. Thus Shemesh, Ra, Atun, Helios,
Apollos, etc., all refer to the solar deity, whereas Zeus, Jove, Hathor,
Dagon, etc., refer to deities not associated with the sun. If I fully
adopted your claim, it would be impossible to translate anything so that
speakers of a different language could understand the message.

By the way, Strong's transliterations of Hebrew terms are idiosyncratic.
Dave (ASA)

On Sat, 02 Feb 2008 11:16:33 -0500 philtill@aol.com writes:
But the ordinary Hebrew word for "sun" was "shemesh" and has no
resemblance to "Ra". It is unintelligible to argue that Moses chose to
use "ma'owr" instead of "shemesh" because the "shemesh" reminded the
Hebrews of "Ra" whereas the "ma'owr" didn't.

Phil

inal Message-----
From: Don Nield <d.nield@auckland.ac.nz>
To: philtill@aol.com
Cc: dfsiemensjr@juno.com; dopderbeck@gmail.com; asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 9:31 pm
Subject: Re: [asa] The Hebrew for the Making of Man

Other nations besides the Sabeans had sun gods (e.g. the Egyptian god
Ra).
Talking of "needly plants with tall trunks" is a very good way of
disparaging the pine tree god -- you will recall that names had a great
deal of significance in the ANE.
Don
 
philtill@aol.com wrote:
> The Sabaeans lived in Yemen and so we wouldn't expect them to have a
great influence on the Hebrews -- not hardly a cause for Moses to change
his vocabulary, especially since you said the Sabaeans?used a "related
term" for their goddess and not even the same word that the Hebrews used
for "sun".? That's like saying that we can't use the word "real" because
a tribe in Peru uses the related word "royal" as the name of a god.
>
> Even if some Hebrews were worshipping the sun, moon, and stars,
these?words?are still the ordinary Hebrew words for the objects and not
proper names of deities.? So Moses would have no cause to stop using the
ordinary words.? In fact, if Moses' vocabulary in Genesis 1 was chosen
with false worship in mind, then it would make more sense for him to use
the ordinary term since then he would be proving that those worshipped
things were just created objects and not gods.
>
> If people were worshipping pine trees, then would Moses stop using the
word "pine trees" and change to "needly plants with tall trunks" just to
avoid using the ordinary words?? No, that makes no sense!? >
> This has got to be one of the weakest arguments I've ever heard.? So
why?? Does the fact that Moses was dealing with phenomena, not objects,
undercut?a favorite argument against Day Agers or YEC's?? If so, that's
not a good reason to use bad arguments.
>
> Phil
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: D. F. Siemens, Jr. <dfsiemensjr@juno.com>
> To: philtill@aol.com
> Cc: d.nield@auckland.ac.nz; dopderbeck@gmail.com; asa@calvin.edu
> Sent: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 5:03 pm
> Subject: 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!
>
>
> ?
>
>
>
>
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--
Donald A. Nield
Associate Professor, Department of Engineering Science
University of Auckland
Private Bag 92019
Auckland 1142, NEW ZEALAND
ph +64 9 3737599 x87908 fax +64 9 3737468
Courier address: 70 Symonds Street, Room 235 or 305
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Received on Sat Feb 2 17:49:45 2008