[Avodah] Birds & Fish in the Mabul

[Micha Berger]

On Wed, Nov 02, 2011 at 10:24:04AM -0000, Chana Luntz wrote:
: RMB writes:
: > I think harder to translate as referring to a less-than-global event
: > would be 6:17, "... leshacheis kol basar acher bo ruach chayim mitachas
: > hashamayim; kol asher ba'aretz yigvah."

: > Similarly 7:19, "kol heharim hagevohim *asher tachas kol hashamayim*".

: > "Mitachas hashamayim" and moreso "kol hashamayim" lack the ambiguity
: > of whether eretz or adamah refers to the whole world, a piece of it,
: > a clump of dirt, etc...

: But note that your translation does assume that, for example, the mountains
: on the moon are a part of shamayim (not to mention those of Mars, Venus
: etc).  We now know and are able to touch rocks and clumps of dirt that make
: up the great mountains of the moon and these planets.

This is not a problem with my translation, but with the words themselves.
After all, if we take shamayim in the spiritual sense, then the pasuq would
be saying that the moon, Mars, Venus, and galaxies beyond were flooded. So
it must be meant in a spacial sense.

: A common way of understanding this today, is to say that the moon and
: planets are really part of ha-aretz, and not part of shamayim (ie Neil
: Armstrong did not spend time in shamayim)...

I think more common is to recognize shamayim as having multiple
translations. Rather than talking about the moon and angels sharing
the same abode.

I think etymologically it is built from "sham", and thus means
"thereness", and would be a term referring to any unreachable domain.
(Contrasted to "aretz", that which can be spanned, related to "rutz"?
At least that is RSRH's take on alef-prefix nouns. But in any case,
my comment about "shamayim" stands no worse without this contrast.)

: Even without this, do note that if the sky as we define it on earth is
: shamayim for the purposes of this pasuk, then due to the earth being round,
: we would have to say that earth is really enveloped in shamayim, meaning
: that all parts of the earth are both tachas the bit it is "underneath" and
: over the bit over the corresponding land on the other side of the globe.

Now that we realize the earth is round, we also realize that up and down,
me'al umitachas, comprise a radial dimension. Altitude is the radius from
the center of the earth (perhaps minus sea level or actual local ground
level), and points along different Cartesian (right-angle) dimensions for
people on different parts of the earth.

Me'al would therefore mean "away from the center".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             The mind is a wonderful organ
micha at aishdas.org        for justifying decisions
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