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

Dave,

OK, now this (below) is the kind of response I was asking for.? Well argued; I must concede your point.?

_However_(there's always a "however" in this crowd, isn't there!?), it still seems to me by the context of the passage that Moses was dealing with the element of "light" versus darkness and so the usage of "light" would be the primary reason for him to choose the word "light-bearer" over "shemesh".? He was discussing how God populated a lightened hemisphere -- and an un-lightened hemisphere -- with populations of distinct "light-bearers."?

So perhaps it was to avoid similarity with a Babylonian god Shamash that Moses avoided the ordinary Hebrew word for the sun, "Shemesh", or perhaps it was to emphasize that he was populating the light with "lights".? I think the context argument is stronger than concerns about Babylonian gods far away across the desert, or the nearby Canaanite gods whose names may have been similar to Shemesh.? I can see how it can be argued either way, but the context seems the stronger argument to me.

God bless,
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 10:57 pm
Subject: Re: [asa] The Hebrew for the Making of Man

John H. Walton, _The NIV Application Commentary, Genesis_, notes that Shamash was the Babylonian name for the sun god (p. 123). He also notes that the passage is, like others, "passively polemical." The Hebrew word for "sun" is _shmsh_, which, with the pointing, is identical to the Babylonian term. Additionally, it appears that the names as deities and as luminaries were identical in ANE. The entry for _helios_ in my little Liddell and Scott seems to indicate that ancient Greek usage was similar, with the word applying both to the sun and to the sun god. Only later was Apollo or Phoebus recognized as the deity. I don't get any indication that the Greeks originally used Aphrodite and Ares as names for the planets, as was the case with the Roman Venus and Mars.

?

Countering your argument in the second paragraph, Walton notes that using the names could be understood as the creation of deities. You are ignoring the ancients' belief that deities came into being. The distinction you want between created things as just stuff and deities as originators is not ancient. Their statues and groves were deities. The ancient outlook does not coincide with contemporary approaches. If you are determined to attack the favorite arguments of Day Agers or YEC, you will not find it in every jot and tittle. If the language of day 4 was intended as an apology against ANE idolatry, it won't help as an argument against contemporary views. However, the use of ANE "science" will counter the attempt to fit the passage to these current eisegetic versions. Additionally, countering the switch from past tense to pluperfect is relevant against OEC and day-age claims.

Dave (ASA)

?

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Received on Mon Feb 4 22:41:55 2008