There are many ways in which our culture is different from the culture of the Bible times. This can cause difficulty for us in understanding the Bible. In many cases, we know things that people in the Bible times did not know. In some cases, they knew things that we no longer know. This article discusses a subject well understood by everyone knew in Old Testament times, but which was lost to us until recently.
The Bible is not interested in teaching the reader anything about pagan Canaanite religion. Canaanite religion exists in the Bible only as a detestable alternative to the worship of God. Nevertheless, contemporaries of Elijah through Jeremiah understood Canaanite religion very well, and some understanding of it enlightens some of the Bible's most interesting stories.
Near modern Latakia, Syria, lay the ancient port city of Ugarit. In 1929 an ancient library was discovered there, containing a rich collection of semitic language literature from around 1300 B.C. Among other things, this library shed much light on the ancient Canaanite religion. It explains much about Baal, Asherah, and other Canaanite gods.
The god Baal was the god of the thunderstorm. Each spring, Baal would die, leading to the dry season (in Israel it does not rain in the summer). Each fall he would return to life, bringing the rainy season with him. This process would involve relations with his female consort, Asherah, who was a goddess of fertility, and humans could participate in and encourage the process by involving themselves with priests or priestesses of these Canaanite religions. Now one could memorize the whole Bible and never know this, but it sheds extra light on the story of Elijah on Mount Carmel. Thunderstorms are more common on a mountain than a plain. Elijah set up a contest during a drought to see which god would answer by fire from heaven on Mount Carmel. In so doing, he was challenging Baal, the thunderstorm god, at his own game and giving him the home field advantage.
Hebrew is very closely related to the other Canaanite languages (Isaiah 19:18). Biblical scholars figured this out even prior to modern archeology, since the names of Canaanite kings often are Hebrew names. In Hebrew, the word "baal" means husband. Hebrew scholars prior to the discovery of the Ugarit library probably believed this was a coincidence, just as in English the word "bear" can be a verb meaning "to carry" or a noun meaning a large furry mammal. In reality, though, the words are connected - Baal is the husband or consort of Asherah. The Ugaritic library also revealed that the Canaanite god of the sea was named "Yam." The Hebrew word for sea is "yam." The Canaanite god of death is named "Mot." The Hebrew word for death is "mot." In retrospect, it is remarkable that one could read the Bible through and never get even a hint that these Hebrew words for sea and death are also names for Canaanite gods of those things. The Bible's emphasis on monotheism is so pronounced that those Canaanite gods do not even get a nod. These words also show how deeply religious, in a pagan sense, the non-Israelite Canaanite culture of the day was, and shed some light on how difficult it must have been to be faithful to God in such a pervasive pagan climate.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Bible Culture vs Modern Culture - Numbers
There are many ways in which our culture is different from the culture of the Bible times. This can cause difficulty for us in understanding the Bible. In many cases, we know things that people in the Bible times did not know. In some cases, they knew things that we no longer know.
One way in which our culture differs from the Bible is in a simple but important aspect of elementary math. In the Bible, they did not have a number zero. In fact, no one made wide use of the number zero until about the 12th century A.D. However, in today's world children are introduced to the number zero in first grade if not before, and we are so comfortable with zero that it is almost impossible for us to think of even simple arithmetic without it. It is also true that math with a zero is vastly superior to math without it, and so we have no motivation to try to think without it - our brain rebels at the attempt. But in Biblical times, there was no number zero.
Many people are already familiar with one implication of the absence of a zero - the fact that there was no year zero, no 0 A.D. The year 1 A.D. immediately followed the year 1 B.C. This tends to make our math not work like we would think: we would assume that going from 5 B.C. to 5 A.D. can be calculated as 5 - (-5) = 10, but that is not right. The absence of the year zero means that there are nine years between 5 B.C. and 5 A.D., not ten.
In Biblical Hebrew, a common way of saying "previously" is by saying "yesterday or three days ago" (Gen 31:2, Exod 5:8, etc.). But in this reckoning yesterday is two days ago, so the saying "yesterday or three days ago" can be rendered two or three days ago, with today being day one. You will never read yesterday or two days ago, because two days ago was yesterday. Just remember there was no zero, so they had to count that way. The same thing happens counting time forward. In Exodus 19:10-11, the LORD tells Moses to have the people consecrate themselves "today [day one] and tomorrow [day two]... and be ready on the third day."
Probably something strange just happened in your mind. The counting backward case where yesterday was two days ago seems so strange that it hurts one's head. But the counting forward example, with tomorrow being the second day, was not strange; we might have even counted the days the same way. Why is that? The answer is that when we use cardinal numbers (three two one), we have a cardinal number zero. But when we use ordinal numbers (third, second, first) we do not have a zero (zeroith?) so suddenly we too do math without a zero, just like they did in Bible times.
This explains why the Bible says that Jesus rose on the third day, even though He was in the tomb less than 48 hours. Crucifixion day - Friday - was day one, Saturday was day two, and Sunday was the day three. We are comfortable with this wording. The Bible uses the formulation that Jesus was or will be raised on the "third day" 13 times (Matt 16:21, 17:23, 20:19, 27:64, Mark 9:31, 10:34, Luke 9:22, 18:33, 24:7, 24:21, 24:46, Acts 10:40, 1 Cor 15:4). The Bible on eight occasions uses a formulation that counts three days to the resurrection, or says "after three days" (Matt 12:40, 26:61, 27:40, 27:63, Mark 8:31, 14:58, 15:29, John 2:19-20). The two different formulations are used in the same books and even in the mouths of the same people. We today might feel that "on the third day" and "after three days" do not mean the same thing, but this is because we have a cardinal number zero, but not an ordinal zero. In the Bible they do mean the same thing.
One way in which our culture differs from the Bible is in a simple but important aspect of elementary math. In the Bible, they did not have a number zero. In fact, no one made wide use of the number zero until about the 12th century A.D. However, in today's world children are introduced to the number zero in first grade if not before, and we are so comfortable with zero that it is almost impossible for us to think of even simple arithmetic without it. It is also true that math with a zero is vastly superior to math without it, and so we have no motivation to try to think without it - our brain rebels at the attempt. But in Biblical times, there was no number zero.
Many people are already familiar with one implication of the absence of a zero - the fact that there was no year zero, no 0 A.D. The year 1 A.D. immediately followed the year 1 B.C. This tends to make our math not work like we would think: we would assume that going from 5 B.C. to 5 A.D. can be calculated as 5 - (-5) = 10, but that is not right. The absence of the year zero means that there are nine years between 5 B.C. and 5 A.D., not ten.
In Biblical Hebrew, a common way of saying "previously" is by saying "yesterday or three days ago" (Gen 31:2, Exod 5:8, etc.). But in this reckoning yesterday is two days ago, so the saying "yesterday or three days ago" can be rendered two or three days ago, with today being day one. You will never read yesterday or two days ago, because two days ago was yesterday. Just remember there was no zero, so they had to count that way. The same thing happens counting time forward. In Exodus 19:10-11, the LORD tells Moses to have the people consecrate themselves "today [day one] and tomorrow [day two]... and be ready on the third day."
Probably something strange just happened in your mind. The counting backward case where yesterday was two days ago seems so strange that it hurts one's head. But the counting forward example, with tomorrow being the second day, was not strange; we might have even counted the days the same way. Why is that? The answer is that when we use cardinal numbers (three two one), we have a cardinal number zero. But when we use ordinal numbers (third, second, first) we do not have a zero (zeroith?) so suddenly we too do math without a zero, just like they did in Bible times.
This explains why the Bible says that Jesus rose on the third day, even though He was in the tomb less than 48 hours. Crucifixion day - Friday - was day one, Saturday was day two, and Sunday was the day three. We are comfortable with this wording. The Bible uses the formulation that Jesus was or will be raised on the "third day" 13 times (Matt 16:21, 17:23, 20:19, 27:64, Mark 9:31, 10:34, Luke 9:22, 18:33, 24:7, 24:21, 24:46, Acts 10:40, 1 Cor 15:4). The Bible on eight occasions uses a formulation that counts three days to the resurrection, or says "after three days" (Matt 12:40, 26:61, 27:40, 27:63, Mark 8:31, 14:58, 15:29, John 2:19-20). The two different formulations are used in the same books and even in the mouths of the same people. We today might feel that "on the third day" and "after three days" do not mean the same thing, but this is because we have a cardinal number zero, but not an ordinal zero. In the Bible they do mean the same thing.
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