[Ads-l] Heard: dialogue

[Andy Bach]

> According to the Masoretic text, which for Jews and English-speaking
Protestants is the canonical text of the Old Testament, the vessel in which
Moses floated on the Nile (Exodus 2:3) was a "tevah".  In Genesis 6:14 Noah
is told "Make yourself a _tevah_ of _gofer_ wood".  The word "tevah" occurs
in the Pentateuch only in these two verses

> Hence Moses was indeed in an "ark" (unless you prefer to say Noah was in
a "basket").

Well, a reed basket, maybe - the story of the Sumarian legend that *may*
(<ahem>) have formed the basis for the Noah one:
According to newly translated instructions inscribed in ancient Babylonian
on a clay tablet telling the story of the ark, the vessel that saved one
virtuous man, his family and the animals from god's watery wrath was not
the pointy-prowed craft of popular imagination but rather a giant circular
reed raft.

The now battered tablet, aged about 3,700 years, was found somewhere in the
Middle East by Leonard Simmons ....
Finkel's research [translating the table] throws light on the familiar
Mesopotamian story, which became the account in Genesis, in the Old
Testament, of Noah and the ark that saved his menagerie from the waters
which drowned every other living thing on earth.

In his translation, the god who has decided to spare one just man speaks to
Atram-Hasis, a Sumerian king who lived before the flood and who is the Noah
figure in earlier versions of the ark story. "Wall, wall! Reed wall, reed
wall! Atram-Hasis, pay heed to my advice, that you may live forever!
Destroy your house, build a boat; despise possessions And save life! Draw
out the boat that you will built with a circular design; Let its length and
breadth be the same."

The tablet goes on to command the use of plaited palm fibre, waterproofed
with bitumen, before the construction of cabins for the people and wild
animals.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/jan/01/noahs-ark-was-circular


On Sun, May 6, 2018 at 7:07 PM, James A. Landau <JJJRLandau at netscape.com>
wrote:

> On Sat, 5 May 2018 15:40:01 Zone-0500 Andy Bach <afbach at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>
> >> "How many days & nights was *_MOSES_* on the Ark?"
> > Was Moses on the Ark, instead of Noah?
>
> According to the Masoretic text, which for Jews and English-speaking
> Protestants is the canonical text of the Old Testament, the vessel in which
> Moses floated on the Nile (Exodus 2:3) was a "tevah".  In Genesis 6:14 Noah
> is told "Make yourself a _tevah_ of _gofer_ wood".  The word "tevah" occurs
> in the Pentateuch only in these two verses
>
> Hence Moses was indeed in an "ark" (unless you prefer to say Noah was in a
> "basket").
>
> "gofer" appears only in Genesis 6:14 and its meaning is unknown, but
> highly unlikely to be "gopher" (the animal).  Some scholars believe it to
> be cypress.  The word "wood" appears in the verse.  The rest of the verse
> may mean "make it an ark built of reeds, and cover it inside and out with
> pitch".
>
> How long was Moses in his ark? Not long.  In Exodus 2:4 Moses's aunt
> "stationed herself at a distance", and Pharoah's daughter apparently showed
> up before the aunt left, which implies Moses was in his ark for less than a
> day.
>
> Reference:  _Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary_ New York: The Rabbinical
> Assembly, 2001, ISBN 0-8276-0712-1, footnotes on Exodus 2:3
>
> change topic:
>
> On Fri, 4 May 2018 22:16:41 Zone-0400 Laurence Horn <
> laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
>
> >There is a plane that takes off from France, and then flies to Chicago
> >with a stop in Toronto.  Engine failure causes the plane to crash right
> >on the border between Canada and the U.S.  Where do they bury the
> survivors?
>
> I first heard this, in Spanish from a group of Ecuadorian exchange
> students, in 1963.  The question, when translated verbatim rather than
> idiomatically, is somewhat macabre:  "?Donde se entierran los
> sobrevivadores?"  "Where did the survivors bury themselves?"
>
> - Jim Landau
>
>
>
>
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a

Andy Bach,
afbach at gmail.com
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