RE: [asa] Two questions...

http://www.asa3.org/asa/education/origins/concordism.htm

Looks like this has been extensively discussed in the past. And I agree,
it's not about what the Psalmist thought the sky was - it was about how what
is seen in nature tells us about God.

However you do have an interesting point, looking at Strong's we have:

Heavens - 8064 shamayim - used extensively throughout the OT

Skies (NIV, "firmament" in KJV) - 7549 raqiya` - used in 17 places: 9 in
Genesis, 2 in Psalms, 5 in Ezekiel, and 1 in Daniel.

Genesis 1:8b links the two together: And God called the firmament Heaven.

David, perhaps in the writing of a Psalm that flowed well, uses both
references.

James Patterson

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of Bethany Sollereder
Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2009 3:52 AM
To: gordon brown
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Two questions...

James,

I realize you are not YEC. It is quite as applicable to OEC, who are still
looking for scientific concordism and are trying to ask questions of the
text that the text was never intended to answer.

Gordon, I thank you for your perspective. I understand what you are saying,
what I was trying to draw out is the difficulty of the word "True" and the
many meanings it can have, as well as asking what we mean when we say "what
we discover about the world... should agree with his Word."

Bethany

On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 7:33 PM, gordon brown <Gordon.Brown@colorado.edu>
wrote:

On Sat, 7 Feb 2009, Bethany Sollereder wrote:

James,

Psalm 19:1-4 is a very interesting choice. You are aware, I hope, that the
word which in your translation is made to be "skies" comes from "raqia".
This is better translated "firmament" or "vault" (See Gen 1 in TNIV) and
refers to the hard dome of the sky holding up the heavenly oceans. This is
basic ANE cosmology and can be seen in Egyptian, Babylonian and Sumerian
creation accounts, and yet I assume when you read skies you think
"atmosphere" - which is certainly not what the Psalmist had in mind.

You said " If what we discover about the world and how he created it and us
is true to God, then it should (and does, IMO) agree with his Word." If you
are going to do this, and agree with what concordism demands, then
ultimately you would have to agree with their cosmology as well. If in fact
you don't think the sky is a hard dome keeping up a heavenly ocean (and that
NASA has indeed sent space ships out which have not run into any such
firmament) then you have already taken the first steps in rejecting the need
for concordism.

Bethany,

You and James may be using different definitions of concordism. If
concordism is defined in such a way that noone is a concordist, it ceases to
be a useful topic of discussion.

In Psalm 19 David is not trying to tell us that the sky is solid. That is
not his topic. He is remarking about what viewing the sky tells him about
God. He uses a word that happens to be derived from ancient cosmology. What
other word should he have used? Even though he presumably believed the
ancient cosmology, it makes no more sense to say that he was trying to teach
that cosmology than it would be to accuse me of teaching geocentricity if I
refer to beautiful sunrises and sunsets.

One can easily find many clues in OT poetical passages to what their
cosmology was. You can also find passages such as the last few chapters of
Job where the language about creation would presumably appear figurative
even to people who accepted ancient cosmology.

Gordon Brown (ASA member)

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Received on Sun Feb 8 06:58:53 2009