RE: [asa] Two questions...

On Sun, 8 Feb 2009, James Patterson wrote:

> 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
>

It is typical of much of Hebrew poetry to have the second line of a
couplet repeat the general thrust of the first line but in different
words. In Genesis 1 God gives names to many of the things that he created.
Thus light=day, darkness=night, firmament=heaven, dry ground=land (or
earth), and gathered waters=seas. This helps to give options for saying
similar things in different ways. There is also another pattern in Psalm
19:1 that defies translation into English. It is subject-verb-object
followed by object-verb-subject.

On the subject of ANE cosmology, I think that when I was two or three
years old, I thought that the earth was flat, the sky was solid, and the
blue in the sky was water. I wasn't taught that; it is just the way things
looked, but I changed my mind immediately when trusted authorities (my
parents) told me otherwise.

Gordon Brown (ASA member)

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Sun Feb 8 21:11:14 2009