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Author | Topic: Can fundamentalists explain Job 26:12-13 for me? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
LamarkNewAge Member Posts: 2424 Joined: Member Rating: 1.3 |
It mentions Rahab (the much forgotten Rahab, not the harlot of Jericho) and the period of chaos before the creation (or just during it) of man, near the very beginning.
I think it refers to a mythological dragon, and thus the debate among fundamentalists should be whether the Canaanites borrowed the dragon myth from the Hebrews (which fundamentalists assume to have existed before the 13th century) or whether the Hebrews borrowed it from the Canaanites. But before we get to that stage, we need to figure out if a primeval dragon is even mentioned here in Job 26. (Can we all agree that the primeval period is the subject?) Actually the first step is to refuse to ignore the issue. Those on this site are less likely to ignore the issue and its implications. The fundamentalist community at large (and the entire world for the matter, Christian or not) is another issue. Ignorance is the order of the day - naturally. But since we are on EVC, then we can skip the last paragraph and its "first step" question. Lets first ask if a primeval dragon is even being covered in the text of Job 26:12-13. Then we should ask who borrowed from whom. Who is the who and who is the whom? This is a question that has lots of potential for clarity, though questions exist. (for example, Lambert says that Enuma Elish wasn't written till 1074 BCE and that the dragon slaying myth most likely came from the Levant, and not from Mesopotamia, and infact the Canaanites - if not the Hebrews - had the theme first.) I start out quite impressed by the amount of evidence that we have to answer this question, anyway. So start answering so I can watch the discussion. Thanks alot.
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LamarkNewAge Member Posts: 2424 Joined: Member Rating: 1.3 |
This is the entire chapter. Notice, below, how verse 10 is parallel to the dry land appearing (a feature of one of the days in Genesis), verses 12 to 13 mention the waters below being separated from the waters above, etc. The piercing of the "fleeing serpent" is a reference to the Rahab monster just mentioned. It clearly refers to the heavens being separated.
quote: This was the New Revised Standard Version. We never hear about a sea monster when we have to deal with creation science and school classroom issues. It needs to be brought up (for sure) when discussing this creation evolution issue. And this entire chapter covers the time before the creation of any life - sealife or otherwise. This is the primeval period, essentially the period of chaos and early creation. This was a chaos monster. Job 26 ( alone!) is solid evidence that the early days of Genesis clearly are related to an earlier Enuma Elish type of situation with a pierced monster being used to associate the separation of waters for the heavens (and the associated dome), earthly waters, and separation/creation of dry land. See Psalms 89 too.
quote: Here we have Psalms 89:9-11 and the context of creation of the heavens. "You rule the raging of the sea;when its waves rise, you still them. You crushed Rahab like a carcass; you scattered your enemies with your mighty arm. The heavens are yours, the earth also is yours; the world and all that is in ityou have founded them." Just like Job 26:12-13 "By his power he stilled the Sea;by his understanding he struck down Rahab. By his wind the heavens were made fair; his hand pierced the fleeing serpent." The evidence is like 99.9% that the Israelites saw the creation story as part of a myth involving a mythological dragon being slayed to create the heavens. How can anyone deny it? Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.
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LamarkNewAge Member Posts: 2424 Joined: Member Rating: 1.3 |
quote: But, can the same be said of Genesis 1? Verses 6-8 talk of the firmament (atmosphere?) being placed to separate the waters above from the waters below. Is that poetry? Is the sudden creation of man - as opposed to a millions of years evolutionary process - also part of the poetry and polemic? Would a 1000 BCE Israelite know how to distinguish the unhistorical lines from the literal? Tell me this. Which verses in Job are literally true? Which use poetic imagery that feature unhistorical mythological events from the primeval period placed in the hands of the Israelite God? Place the Rahab serpent in its Genesis 1 context. Place the rest of Job 26 and its 14 verses in context (if possible). Which verses (that can be placed in Genesis 1 or not) are historical and which aren't? I'm wondering if the Rahab verses are the only ones you discriminate against in this way.
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LamarkNewAge Member Posts: 2424 Joined: Member Rating: 1.3 |
quote: From the first lines of Enuma Elish
quote: It's an old translation. Marduk then killed her.
quote: Then the use (of her ribs or crotch in newer translations) of Tiamat as a firmament to hold back her heavenly waters.
quote: This was the sacred texts site but here is the Wikipedia page linkTiamat - Wikipedia Job 26:12-13 seems very similar. By his power he stilled the Sea;by his understanding he struck down Rahab. By his wind the heavens were made fair; his hand pierced the fleeing serpent. Psalms talks about God crushing Rahab like Marduk did to Tiamat. Rahab is a serpent and the sea, like Tiamat. The primeval chaos waters and serpent monster that was the universal sea, which was then divided into upper and lower waters. Enuma Elish might not be the source for Genesis 1, Job 26, and Psalms 89, but it does indeed show us what the people of that region believed. Enuma Elish and the biblical creation accounts could be later writings of a common ancestral motif of the primeval period. A creation by God using a giant sea monster is actually more difficult to falsify then a 6 day creation that is now 6000 years ago old with a universal global flood 4200 years ago. Creationists ignore it because it sounds so "mythological" on the one hand, and, on the other hand, it just reeks of pagan mythology. But, why not just say the pagans got the idea from the pristine Hebrew scriptures with their literal historical truths? It seems that it is another example of airbrushing out the parts of scripture that are culturally embarrassing. In our modern culture (church culture and secular culture alike), it just seems embarrassing I suppose. Plus people aren't conditioned to it. Should it be seen as historical? By "his hand pierced the fleeing serpent". God's hand. On the other hand, we have another perspective. Jesus said (in Matthew 19) that divorce notes were allowed to be written by Moses because of the cultural attitudes of the Israelites, but from the beginning it was never allowed. Cultural sensitivity allowed (according to Jesus) severe moral lapses to be tolerated and even enshrined in sacred scripture as moral and good. A grave sin to God was recorded in scripture as o.k. Perhaps cultural sensitivity caused a situation where sacred scripture had a record of a mythological creation event that never happened? Interesting questions because we have a fundamentalist community that includes both open-minded people that explore the issue(s) with integrity, and the other more dominant group that ignores inconvenient issues yet makes a crusade like effort to impose their own (selective) "biblical" issues on everybody else. It would be interesting regardless, just from a humanistic perspective to understand history and texts, but this is a political issue - a vitally important one at that, Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.
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LamarkNewAge Member Posts: 2424 Joined: Member Rating: 1.3 |
quote: Then
quote: (quotation marks added above and below to site text by me LamarkNewAge because EVC wont let me space the translation of the ancient text to create a margin)
quote: The preexisting chaos creature seems to make up the matter of the entire universe. Marduk and his "evil wind" (like YHWH and his ru'ach or spirit/mighty wind) blew across the primeval waters/sea/Tiamat (like Tehom/The Deep in Genesis 1:1-1:3). Interesting that the starts weren't yet mentioned in Job 26. But it mentions the heavens in verse 13 after the defeating of Rahab and piercing of the serpent (like Marduk exactly did). Tiamat was the Tehom ("The Deep") and "the firmament" of Genesis plus the waters in the sky and below in the sea (and Tigris and Euphrates). Tiamat even was used to make up stars - her tail to be specific. She was a serpent and then the stars too. Stars came to be in Genesis after "the firmament" was made. Stars were placed "in the firmament" in Genesis 1. How can stars be places in what is essentially thought by Christians to be the atmosphere? Enuma Elish shows us that the primeval dragon was the material for the invisible dome/atmosphere, the outer space water, and the stars! The primeval dragon is the focus of creation in both the Bible and the ancient near east (especially Enuma Elish). It is the fundamental ingredient with YHWH in the Bible. Absolutely fundamental. 100% important. Not to be ignored (at all).
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LamarkNewAge Member Posts: 2424 Joined: Member Rating: 1.3 |
quote: I said this: "Tell me this. Which verses in Job are literally true? Which use poetic imagery that feature unhistorical mythological events from the primeval period placed in the hands of the Israelite God?" How do you distinguish the mythic parts from the historical? Forget about whether it is poetry or prose.
quote: o.k. Then you quoted me asking "I'm wondering if the Rahab verses are the only ones you discriminate against in this way." You responded
quote: I was simply asking how you are able to distinguish between the lines that are supposedly meant to be taken for granted as unhistorical imagery and then the historical lines.
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LamarkNewAge Member Posts: 2424 Joined: Member Rating: 1.3 |
quote: Job isn't in the first pages of the Bible, that's for sure. Now Job might be using stories from diverse sources but he said that the hand of God pierced the primeval serpent and he placed the creation of the heavens right in between his Rabah serpent revelation. Job was the one that talked about the creation of the heavens. Verses 10 to 13 are: 10He has described a circle on the face of the waters,at the boundary between light and darkness. 11 The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astounded at his rebuke. 12 By his power he stilled the Sea; by his understanding he struck down Rahab. 13By his wind the heavens were made fair; his hand pierced the fleeing serpent. Fundamentalists use verse 7 to say that God placed a spherical earth into empty space. They say that "Job said it in God's great book, so it must be true". Job said the hand of God did something, so however obscure it is due to its being deep into the Holy Bible (away from the page 1 creation of Genesis), Job still said God did it. He pierced the serpent while making the heavens.
quote: Verses 7 to 13 are about the primeval period, which was a period of God's creation. God made the heavens. I sort out the spearing as during the making of the heavens. The Rahab line was immediately followed by God making the heavens then right back to the speared serpent. The context is very clear to objective ears.
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LamarkNewAge Member Posts: 2424 Joined: Member Rating: 1.3 |
quote: This quote?
quote: Or this quote?
quote: Sorry but shouldn't this be used to present the argument and put Job 26 into its context? I was mad at myself for not quoting from Genesis 1, but I saved space by trusting that people here were familiar with it. God made the heavens while piercing the serpent Rahab. It has a clear cognate in the Ancient Middle east.
quote: Well, I said it covered the period before biological life was formed. And I didn't say that a Creation Myth is the exact same thing as a biology text (especially not a modern one). I don't see why it isn't a creation myth. You must have a very strict criteria, that's for sure. Yes it does have morality tales in it. Job still said God pierced the primeval dragon while making the heavens. Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.
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LamarkNewAge Member Posts: 2424 Joined: Member Rating: 1.3 |
I said this.
quote: Jar then said that my creation myth issues were "just a total irrelevancy, a pointless exercise" and with wacked up contextual issues as it relates to Job. But, this scholar ,below , feels it is important.
quote: The contextual issues usually involve proving that Psalms 89:10 and Job 26:12-13 belong to the time of creation (and not some later time). Google I did this search trying to find the Anchor Bible Dictionary quote about Psalms 89 clearly being in the context of creation (not pasted here). It is in the logos discussion at the top of the google search. I found the above scholarly article (pasted in part). Jar seems to be thinking that Job should never be used to see what the Israelites thought literally, since the point of job is a morality tale or something (others say it was "just poetry" and Job was using his poet's license) That is like saying that Enuma Elish shouldn't be used since it was simply used to exalt Marduk and to establish his cult. We still have a primordial dragon myth on our hands and Job mentioned it.
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LamarkNewAge Member Posts: 2424 Joined: Member Rating: 1.3 |
quote: The Canaanite texts of Lothan (or Littanu or whatever)are a clear cognate of Psalms 74 except for the name of the God doing the killing of the multi-headed beast. The Ugaritic texts pre-date 1200 BCE, which is before the Psalm's text. Enuma Elish could date as late as 1074 BCE, which means that parts of the Bible (including Genesis 49) could actually be older. I was more interested in what exactly the Biblical texts were saying though. Not chronological priority issues and who stole from whom. (most of the worlds creation myths can't be dated at all however, and could be just a few hundred years old, so get suspicious when one claims they are old) Also. The "plot device" claim hasn't been demonstrated. Really, why shouldn't we assume it was a belief that was taken literally? The text could very well have been based on a real, literal, rock solid historically accurate belief (with regards to the primeval age and the associated "creation")by the author of Job
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LamarkNewAge Member Posts: 2424 Joined: Member Rating: 1.3 |
Here is a post, from another poster, that I noticed Phat agreed with.
quote: I responded with the questions. "But, can the same be said of Genesis 1? Verses 6-8 talk of the firmament (atmosphere?) being placed to separate the waters above from the waters below. Is that poetry?" "Is the sudden creation of man - as opposed to a millions of years evolutionary process - also part of the poetry and polemic?" "Would a 1000 BCE Israelite know how to distinguish the unhistorical lines from the literal?" Is every pagan concept that gets mentioned there ONLY a polemic, and not meant to be historical? Placing the stars in the firmament or atmosphere is just a polemical way to describe things? Just like the waters being above the firmament or atmosphere. It came from ancient middle eastern beliefs, as we see in Enuma Elish. The biblical text was just a polemic so as to overthrow pagan concepts?
quote: I asked if the ancient Israelites were let in on the so called "plot devices" and "polemical references" to unhistorical and unscientific pagan concepts. Martin Luther sure wasn't
quote: Then
quote: If a biblical text is proven to be unscientific, then it is just a "polemic against the pagans" or "poetic language this is simply a plot device". Gods, monsters, and cosmological conceptions that are now seen as unscientific were never meant to be literal history. So it goes now. Or are the cosmological conceptions in Genesis accurate? We now hear about "vapor canopies" which were able to project the stars into our field of vision so as to match the Genesis text with "science". A creationist Carl Baugh said that the early "firmament" might have actually sung the stars into the field of our senses in an acoustic way (I heard that somewhere). It's just the mention of pagan primeval monsters that is polemical I suppose? Genesis is both polemical and scientifically accurate at the same time? When does the mythological creature referencing polemical tactic end and the straight literal historical record begin to be used in the text? And when the heck were the ancient Israelites "in the know" when it came to the tactic? Nevermind the early, not to mention medieval, Christians.
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LamarkNewAge Member Posts: 2424 Joined: Member Rating: 1.3 |
quote: Here is an English translation of the Septuagint (which is super-important when it comes to Job)
quote: Job 26:12 Hebrew issuesJob 26:12 Hebrew Text Analysis Hebrew Concordance: ma -- 3 Occurrences Job 26:13 Hebrew issuesJob 26:13 Hebrew Text Analysis Hebrew Concordance: llh -- 1 Occurrence I have only quoted from the NRSV till my Septuagint translation. I use the NRSV because is seems to be somewhat neutral when it comes to translating verses in order to match theological beliefs and also because is uses the 27th (?) edition of Nestle-Allen while the NIV (and most others) use only the 21st edition. The World Council of Churches is the largest protestant organization in the world and they attempted to have a scholarly translation. The NRSV plus Septuagint aren't exactly the translations to go to when one attempts to cherry pick. I'll use an example later to show you what the NIV does. I'll think of one.
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LamarkNewAge Member Posts: 2424 Joined: Member Rating: 1.3 |
First the issue.
quote: The NIV adds words and changes the text so as to match the Exodus text. But the Hebrew words are nowhere to be found in any text.Jeremiah 7:22-24 NIV - For when I brought your ancestors out - Bible Gateway The NIV, despite itself, seems to admit that there is a contradiction (albeit in a dishonest way) when the text gets altered in translation. The NIV is a go to translation for quote mining to change the original text's meaning. There are others for sure, but the NIV is amazingly dishonest. Not the NRSV. Especially not the NRSV when it is used alongside Septuagint translations. Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.
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LamarkNewAge Member Posts: 2424 Joined: Member Rating: 1.3 |
quote: Here is a scholarly translation and commentary on text (scroll up slightly for beginning of coverage of the area of interest) God's Battle with the Monster: A Study in Biblical Imagery - Mary K. Wakeman - Google Books Here is a piece of Catholic endorsed scholarship
quote: Fundamentalist scholarship below
quote: See fuller quotes of the last 2 books hereEvC Forum: Evidence of a seas monster myth in Genesis 1? Even fundi scholars admit so(?)! Enough of this quote mining business. (accusations and such)Sorry for the large number of quotes. Edited by LamarkNewAge, : No reason given.
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LamarkNewAge Member Posts: 2424 Joined: Member Rating: 1.3 |
Job 26:12-13 NIV - By his power he churned up the sea; by - Bible Gateway
Here is a link where one can look at all the translations for Job 26:12-13 I think I quoted the NKJV above and said it was the NIV. The NIV might be the second. Not the NASB Computer was stalling badly when I was pasting. Here is NASB
quote: NKJV
quote: |
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