23 replies to this topic

[volgadon]

cdowis, on 15 June 2012 - 09:36 PM, said:

"idiot" == You are putting words in my mouth, and I find your comment insulting, . My assumption is that all of us are equally intelligent.

I could use the same phrase to describe some of my own posts -- to use clever words instead of using intelligent thought makes for a silly (e.g. "adieu") argument, but is no reflection on the individual

Pleeze stop putting words in my mouth.

thankyousoverymuch

I apologise, but your post came across as very insulting, in just that tenor.

[volgadon]

Robert F. Smith, on 14 June 2012 - 05:07 PM, said:

So, Craig,
if you already knew that Raukeeyang was a Sephardic style transliteration of a Hebrew word (Book of Abraham facsimile 2:4 "the Hebrew word Raukeeyang"), why would you innocently declare that "Raukeeyang is not Egyptian" or that it is "completely made up"?  That is exactly the sort of falsehood that Fawn Brodie declared about Nauvoo -- never bothering to check with a Hebraist, even though her husband was Jewish.  Brodie never bothered to apologize for that blatant inaccuracy (among many others).


Othmar Keel would see cosmic symbolism here, the primeval ocean frequently being indicated by zig-zag lines (facsimile 1:12).*  The heavenly “expanse” or “firmament” of heaven is the celestial ocean, and the crocodile reminiscent of “Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers” (Ezk 29:3; = Rahab the dragon in Isa 51:9 ∥I Ne 8:9; Ps 89:10[11]), the KJV term for “dragon” here being Hebrew tannim/tannin = Ugaritic tnn “Tunnan” (a cosmic enemy defeated by Canaanite Anat; Baal Epic CAT 1.3 III 40; KTU 1.6 VI 51).


You need to own up to your mistaken calumnies, Craig, and this doesn't quite do it.

*  Keel, Symbolism of the Biblical World, 41, figs. 36-38.  The representation of waters with the choppy lines is standard in ancient Egyptian (C. Wilkinson & M. Hill, Egyptian Wall Paintings: The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Collection of Facsimiles [NY, 1983], 40-42, 60-61).

In addition to that, see the Second Temple and Late Antiquity sources Nathaniel Deutsch used in his paper "Dangerous Ascents: Rabbi Akiba's Water Warning and Late Antique Cosmological Traditions."

Quote

The view that one encounters water in heaven was common in Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature. For example, the Testament of Levi  2:7  declares, "And I entered from the first heaven and saw a huge sea hanging there"; the Testament of Abraham Recension B 8 has, "And Michael went out and took Abraham in the body on a cloud and lifted him up to the river Ocean"; while 2 Enoch 3:3 states, 'They placed me on the first heaven and showed me a very great sea, greater than the earthly sea."

[Valentinus]

WalkerW, on 15 June 2012 - 01:35 PM, said:

Surely this is familiar:

Yikes...Leviathan! Which tradition are we talking about? Sea Monster or Keeper of Hell's Gates?

[volgadon]

Valentinus, on 15 July 2012 - 08:09 PM, said:

Yikes...Leviathan! Which tradition are we talking about? Sea Monster or Keeper of Hell's Gates?

Both.