peter eyland's last comment is interesting. the greeks thought initially that light comes from the eye to the object, then inverted. did the ancients indeed believe the sky light is not due to the sun?
in both aramaic and hebrew $MYM / $MY) appear in plural form, as if derived from the root $MM or $M). but in both languages it is also of the form $-water (hebrew $-MYM, aramaic $-MY) with water also in plural (??). whether this similarity is accidental or not, we dont know. the sky/atmosphere does contain water as an essential element. but one may view gen 1 as an attempt to come to terms with this linguistic similarity. (strictly speaking, the hebrew form with NYQUD is the dual form, but the biblical word could also mean the plural form.) the arabic situation is somewhat similar: MY) for water and SM) and SM)) (sing/pl?) for sky. the common NWS form seems to be $M)=sky. but we may conjecture $M=air, $WM=emptyness, $MYM=the great emptyness, $MMH=empty terrain (desert, destruction), N$M=breath. in this case, the sky-water linguistic similarity would be merely accidental. now is the most intriguing: $M$=sun. if we interpret $M$ as $MY-)$ or sky-fire or fire-of-the-great-emptyness we may, opposite to peter's opinion, conclude that the ancients did associate the sky light with the sun. of course, this is conjectural, and also problematic since $M$ is sun also in babylonian, where sky (as far as i know) is AN and nor $M). nir cohen _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
