Tag Archive

Does the Old Testament Teach a Three-Tiered Cosmology?

Published on February 20, 2022 By sirrahc

“Job 37:18, which describes skies without rain as a ‘bronze’ expanse (cf. Deut 28:23), is figurative and does not support the common contention that the ‘expanse’ was considered a bronze dome by the Hebrews.” — Kenneth Mathews, Genesis 1–11:26 (New American Commentary, vol. 1a) For roughly the past couple hundred years, certain scholars (mostly higher […]

Is Genesis 1-11 Poetry or Prose?

Published on January 30, 2022 By sirrahc

When it comes to the first few chapters of Genesis, some people like to claim that it is merely poetry (and thus at least partly fictional), as opposed to narrative prose about actual things that happened in real time. (Of course, even poetry can point to reality despite flowery or phenomenological language.) This affords them […]

Three O.T. Figures of Speech

Published on August 22, 2021 By sirrahc

Just a short lesson this week on recognizing three types of figure of speech found in the Old Testament. Now, there are various types of figures of speech — idioms, euphemisms, anthropomorphisms, merisms, hyperbole, simple metaphors, etc. During my recent read-through of the Bible in the NET translation, I noticed (thanks to the footnotes) that […]