https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mWyDaUF-AqyHfLRoAFgMdzWJv5YLvsYK/view https://www.academia.edu/41010101/TRANSLATING_GENESIS_AS_A_BOOK_Genesis_1_1_2_3_Nov_2019_ Bereshit does not refer to an absolute beginning, but the beginning of the heaven & the earth as we know them: This informs us on the Hebrew cosmology of the author of Genesis 1. Gen 1 took on its peculiar form in the course of the history of traditions in Israel. The arrangement…

Article We shouldn’t interpret Genesis through the filter of modern astrophysics and cosmology because the biblical authors shared the same general cosmology as the rest of their ancient neighbors. Specifically, the Old Testament authors assumed the earth is round, flat, and covered by a sky dome that retained above it a literal cosmic ocean. When…

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As noted earlier, there wa s a long history of cosmological speculation, largely mythical, in the cultures surrounding Israel, and the Old Testament exhibits correspondences with their ideas. If cosmology was a longstanding interest in the ANE generally, it is probable that Israel shared that wide r interest from an early stage in its history.…

For example , from around the thirteenth century BCE, the Egyptians had identified the five planets visible to the naked eye (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) and over forty stellar constellations, including the signs of the Zodiac (Wright, Cosmology, p. 15). Greek cosmological enquiry, from the sixth century BCE onwards, wa s based on…

According to St. Ephremn, Commentary on Genesis, when God separated the waters on the earth from the waters in the sky (Genesis 1:6), both bodies of water were sweet, but when God gathered the waters on the ground together and created the seas (Genesis 1:9), the waters on the earth remained salty and those in…

Originating out of 2nd/3rd century debates with Gnostics. It is truly incredible that an idea that seems so natural to us and that we think is or might have been shared by all people throughout history has only sprouted in a very specific context. This doctrine also plays an important place in early Christological debates:…