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Friday, November 02, 2018

Biblical hyperbole

This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark 300 cubits, its breadth 50 cubits, and its height 30 cubits (Gen 6:15).

i) I'd like to revisit two issues I've discussed before. One objection to the historicity of Noah's flood is the claim that a wooden ship that big wouldn't be seaworthy. It would lack structure integrity.

But as I've noted in the past, we don't even know for sure that the ark was made of wood. Although that's sometimes how the word is translated, if you read commentaries you see that scholars don't know what they word means. They assume it refers to some kind of tree, but that's just a guess.

ii) Why does the flood account even state the dimensions of the ark? It could tell the same story without including that detail. One explanation is to stress the scale of the impending deluge. A big evacuation vessel for a big flood. 

However, that's also consistent with a hyperbolic interpretation. On that view, it states the dimensions of the ark in the same way that it uses other comparisons to indicate the scale of the deluge. Yet some of those phrases are used elsewhere hyperbolically. So it's possible that the ark, while a wooden vessel, was actually smaller and seaworthy. 

Every eye shall see him (Rev 1:7). 

i) Critics say that reflects a flat-earth cosmography. But as I've noted in the past, if the sign of the Son of Man hovered for one rotation period, everyone would see it over the course of 24 hours. 

ii) But another possibility is that the statement is hyperbolic. A way of saying this is a public event. There will be many eyewitnesses, but not necessarily that every human being will see it. 

iii) Actually, the "sign of the Son of Man" comes from Mt 24:30. One question is whether the sign is distinct from Jesus or if Jesus is the sign. Does it refer to seeing Jesus in the sky or a symbolic celestial harbinger that heralds his impending approach?

iv) Even if everyone doesn't see Jesus at the moment of his arrival, everyone might eventually see Jesus after he arrives. Although the Parousia refers to the physical, bodily return of Christ, it's possible for Jesus to simultaneously appear in multiple locations as a visionary Christophany. In that mode, he could even be visible to the blind. 

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