Nir, that's precisely the kind of analysis I'm trying to do with the word רקיע. The control must lie in the context.
GEORGE ATHAS Dean of Research, Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au) Sydney, Australia From: "Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Tuesday, 11 September 2012 3:32 AM To: B-Hebrew <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: [b-hebrew] rqy( george, i wonder if ANY text analysis can be completely free from some external pressupositions. for example in gen 13:1 וַיַּעַל אַבְרָם מִמִּצְרַיִם one has to abandon the literal meaning, "went up/rose", and accept the borrowed meaning, "migrated back". the text does NOT imply that the ancients perceived egypt as physically lower than canaan. and in gen 23:8 שְׁמָעוּנִי, וּפִגְעוּ-לִי בְּעֶפְרוֹן בֶּן-צֹחַר "hit/harm" is rejected and "entreat" is adopted for obvious reasons. when we form a phrase, our words try to approximate a certain image; more often than not, if our phrasing is not perfect, we rely on the listener's capacity to reconstruct the same image in spite of its imperfection. but the listener must cooperate by flexibilizing his definitions of the words. i think that "(L PNY HRQY(" in gen 1-2 implies a necessarily touchable literal surface only under a very inflexible reading. nir cohen _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
