It can mean "sky." I don't know what you would mean by "visible" sky. The point is that Moses says that all the high mountains under the WHOLE SKY were covered. It does not say "all the sky in a particular region." Besdies, such language would be a bit silly and even self-defeating so interpreted. The Hebrew text is instructive here. It says:RickD wrote:Can't the word for "heaven", shamayim, mean "visible sky"?Jac wrote:
And I'll add this. As firm as I am that the linguistic evidence is absolutely undeniable that yom refers to ordinary days, it is more clear still that Genesis depicts Noah's flood as global. "Under the whole heaven" cannot be reinterpreted locally, a conveniently ignored fact in Rich's article.
- וְהַמַּיִם גָּבְרוּ מְאֹד מְאֹד עַל־הָאָרֶץ וַיְכֻסּוּ כָּל־הֶֽהָרִים הַגְּבֹהִים אֲשֶׁר־תַּחַת כָּל־הַשָּׁמָֽיִם
veha'mayim gaberu meod meod al-ha'aretz vayekusu kal-ha'hariym ha'gebohiym esher-tathath kal-ha'shamayim
Now, in Hebrew, one of the ways you make a point is with emphasis. Moses didn't just say that the hills in the country were covered up with water. He said
1. The water overpowered
2. That it did so not just greatly, but exceedingly greatly
3. That in overpowering, it covered the earth/land
4. That this land included the mountains
5. That these mountains were not just mountains, but HIGH mountains
6. That we are talking about ALL the mountains
7. That we are talking about all the mountains under the heaven
8. And not just any heaven/sky, but the WHOLE sky
And that is just in one verse. Moses makes similar emphases in the verses before and after. He repeats the word "prevailed/overpowered" three times in three verses. The picture is universal devastation. To not see that is just not to take seriously how much emphasis Moses is making here. And this is all before we start talking about the fact that Gen 1-11 is universal in nature. It's not until Gen 12 that Moses shifts his interests to a particular family/area.
No . . . the local flood is even sillier than the days-are-ages riff. Sorry, but it just is, Rick. I mean no offense. It's just obvious when you take the text seriously. It is so obvious that, AGAIN, no church father and I know of no ancient Jewish interpreter interpreted the text locally (with the one exception being Pseudo-Justin, a fifth century document). The paucity of that evidence ought to be clear in Rick's claim (same article mentioned above) that ancient Jewish interpreters DID take a local flood from this text out of Josephus:
- Now all the writers of barbarian [Greek] histories make mention of this flood and of this ark: among whom is Berosus the Chaldean... Hieronymous the Egyptian.... Nicolaus of Damascus, in his ninety-sixth book, hath a particular relation about them, where he speaks thus: 'There is a great mountain in Armenia, over Minyas, called Baris, upon which it is reported that many who fled at the time of the Deluge were saved; and that one who was carried in an ark came on shore upon top of it; and that the remains of the timber were a great while preserved. This might be the man about whom Moses, the legislator of the Jews wrote'."
Once again, the point remains that the local flood is an eisogetical interpretation. It comes out of what I take to be an embarrassment of the biblical account as it is written, not a sincere attempt to understand what the text actually says. So, instead, we reject what the text actually says, we deny it and read into it meanings that are not there (and thus the appeal Ps 104). It's just a response to modern science. Put differently, it is a reinterpretation of the text driven by science. But the question becomes, as always, what WARRANT is there in the text to justify a local reading? And, of course, there is none. This reminds me of when an atheist told me that aliens probably stole Jesus' body. Sure, that is a possible reinterpretation of the events, I suppose. But what is the WARRANT? Just because something can be conceived doesn't mean it is a serious possibility that ought to be entertained. The global flood is warranted by the plain language of the text that uses repeated universal terms and major emphasis on the universal nature of the catastrophe. And where is the warrant for the local flood? It's not there, and no one thought there might be one until modern science came along.
I'm not impressed. No, "the whole heavens" means just what it says. It means the entire sky. All of it. Not part of it.
edit:
No, because in English "the whole sky is gray" is talking about a specifically visual phenomenon. A better comparison in English would be, "I've driven every road under the sky" or "I've been in every country under heaven" or "I own all the land under the whole sky." That kind of language doesn't lend itself to local interpretations. In fact, were you to say any of those, people would rightly assume you were exaggerating to make a point. But do we assume that Moses was exaggerating? Of course not. He is talking about ALL the HIGH mountains under the WHOLE heaven being GREATLY COVERED and OVERPOWERED by the waters.I'm just thinking out loud, but could "Under the whole heaven", be similar to when we say in English "the whole sky is gray today"? Obviously we mean the whole sky as far as we can see.
That's not exaggeration. That's making sure you get the point. The flood was universal in scope. It covered absolutely everything.
