@ThaddeusB While fetching the BDB links for this one (nice answer!) I found their reference in the verb entry to Job 37:18 helpful -- that’s the first word, “you spread (/hammer) out”.
In 1 Kings 18:27, Elijah is recorded as mocking the servants of Ba'al. In this speech as it is recorded in the ESV, Elijah suggests that Ba'al may be indisposed answering nature's call.
And at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relievi...
@Susan Thanks, always appreciate those corrections. :) ... Funny that there is a good chance this will become my top answer (already number 2), despite it being a fairly easy/quick one. Of course, that is because it started on C.SE and got a bunch of votes there before migration. The OP causing trouble on C.SE meta no doubt boosted visibility a bit too... It pushed me over 2k rep, so I'm famous here now. ;)
These "why did translators change the King James" (always with an implication that they did something wrong) questions do irk me a bit, but they are easy enough to answer and (hopefully) correct someone's misconception about how language works.
@Susan LOL.
Lots of neat stuff in those moderator tools. Only downside is it comes with the annoying "all pending review tasks count instead of just those you can act on" orange box bug.
@JamesShewey Torah? Because it was in the old testament I guess - :) I guess on those grounds, a LOT of questions would be tagged with "torah"! But this tag is for the more restricted sense of "first five books of the Hebrew Bible" - have a look at the "tag wiki" when in doubt.
@ThaddeusB With such connotations often derived from ideas expressed by other Ancient Near East cultures, ideas which were not necessarily shared by the Hebrew people. - I would be interested to hear what ideas you think were not shared or were different.
@JamesShewey I don't necessarily think they were different. What I would actually say is there is not enough evidence for a definitive answer... My point in the answer is that a translation shouldn't impose ideas that are not in the text.
There is nothing to suggest that רָקִיעַ implies a solid dome that divides the "sky water" from the earth. Gen 1:6 does say it divides the waters, but 1:14 says the "lights" (stars) are in it, which is hard to reconcile with a dome, and Gen 1:20 describes the open רָקִיעַ, which directly contradicts the idea that it is a solid divider.
of course the translation of פְּנֵ֖י as "open" is debatable, which brings me back to my original position of "inconclusive evidence" in either direction
As for the lights being in the dome, that was fairly typical of the cosmology. Most cultures were thought to be something like those star stickers kids get and they were affixed to the dome structure.
They also realized that they moved, but they thought that they moved across the dome.
@JamesShewey Yes, I didn't translate it here since it is the word in question... The stars could be "on" the dome, but could they really be "in" it if it is a thin barrier layer between the air and the sky water? Also the birds apparently fly in the "expanse" (Gen 1:20), again making it doubtful that it is a barrier layer. I don't see anything in Genesis to conclude that the "expanse" means anything more than the air or the sky or that tells us much about the Israelites' conception of the world.
Hmmm. I always took the open/expanse to be air under the firmament - thus how the expanse separates the waters above from the waters below. That interpretation equates the expanse and the firmament, but I think they were two separate concepts in most of the creation myths.
Technically, I think the expanse and the firmament separate the two waters, but that's not what the text reads (of course). I think that is what would have been understood though.
@JamesShewey There is no indication in Genesis that there are two separate (space and barrier) things. You could be right that the original audience would have understood the world that way, but it isn't in the text.
@Susan If you mean, where does "open" come from, its the KJV & NASB translation. The most common translation appears to be "across" - either way an atypical translation for פְּנֵ֖י; it seems there is a very broad semantic range for פָּנִים.
@Susan Gen 1:20. Jame's question about how I thought the Israelites understood cosmetology is what brought it up.
Genesis 1:20 says "the birds fly עַל־פְּנֵ֖י רְקִ֥יעַ" which KJV takes to mean "in the open firmament" while ESV has "across the expanse". I was saying that this description doesn't seem compatible with the רְקִ֥יעַ being a firm barrier between the waters above and below, as typically pictured in ANE cosmology
@ThaddeusB Ah. Like Gen 1:2 (and 1:29). Not sure to what extent you already know this but ....that word (lit. “faces-of”) compounds with a bunch of prepositions to create new, essentially, prepositions (that can usually double as adverbs). So “on-the-faces-of”.
@Susan Right, I did see literally "faces" but wasn't sure what to make of it in context. And apparently Gen 1:20 is a tough one for professional translators too. :)
@ThaddeusB That quote kind of needs one more word (both for pronunciation and the article) - עַל־פְּנֵ֖י רְקִ֥יעַ הַשָּׁמָֽיִם - firmament/expanse is “constructed” with the following noun, “the heavens”. [inaccurate proposition deleted] That’s interesting that we moved from “called the expanse / heavens” in 1:8 to now “the expanse-of-the-heavens”. I never noticed that. I’m sure somebody has written about that pivot.
Genesis 1:20 reads:
וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים יִשְׁרְצ֣וּ הַמַּ֔יִם שֶׁ֖רֶץ נֶ֣פֶשׁ חַיָּ֑ה וְעֹוף֙ יְעֹופֵ֣ף עַל־הָאָ֔רֶץ עַל־פְּנֵ֖י רְקִ֥יעַ הַשָּׁמָֽיִם׃ (WLC)
Which translates as:
And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth עַל־...
@ThaddeusB Thanks, will be interesting to see what that elicits. I guess I’m not totally seeing how it doesn’t make sense, approximately ‘literally’. Look up, and the birds are flying on the face of the expanse of the heavens (which is probably a little less poetic-sounding in Hebrew allowing for the common use of “on the face(s) of” as a preposition). That doesn’t preclude them going up and down really....
Cosmology notwithstanding (I know next-to-nothing about ANE cosmology), it seems like an accurate phenomenological formulation.
@Susan When I say literally, I am thinking of "face" as the surface of something solid. E.g., walking on the face of the earth. Perhaps thinking of something like "fish swimming on the face of the waters" will clear up why I have trouble understanding it literally... If "on the face of" is a proposition such as "across" here (which is probably the correct answer), I would consider that an idiom.
@JamesShewey I just attempted an answer to Thaddeus’s question which may answer, but basically it’s the latter. (The first is “let him (collective: birds) fly”.)
@JamesShewey Is "in the face of" English? :-) Actually, yes, it means "in view of" conceptually - "In the face of extreme whether conditions, we donned our hats."
I just mean that these are idioms, and we can't make up new ones.
So what it really boils down to is, are the birds flying in the face of the firmament of the sky (near it) or on the face of the firmament of the sky (literally on it)
In 1 Kings 18:27, Elijah is recorded as mocking the servants of Ba'al. In this speech as it is recorded in the ESV, Elijah suggests that Ba'al may be indisposed answering nature's call.
And at noon Elijah mocked them, saying, “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relievi...
Genesis 1:20 reads:
וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים יִשְׁרְצ֣וּ הַמַּ֔יִם שֶׁ֖רֶץ נֶ֣פֶשׁ חַיָּ֑ה וְעֹוף֙ יְעֹופֵ֣ף עַל־הָאָ֔רֶץ עַל־פְּנֵ֖י רְקִ֥יעַ הַשָּׁמָֽיִם׃ (WLC)
Which translates as:
And God said, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth עַל־...
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