Raqia debate : Josephus (and Philo)

Intro to Raqia debate with Drew Gasaway · Midrash part of Debate with Drew · Raqia : debate on 3 Baruch 3:5-8 · Raqia debate : Josephus (and Philo) · Raqia debate : Hezekiel 1:22 · Raqia debate : Psalm 148 · Raqia debate : Genesis Day 4

Below was part

of original status:

Drew Gasaway

Josephus said, "After this, on the second day, he placed the heaven over the whole world, and separated it from the other parts; and he determined it should stand by it self. He also placed a cristalline [firmament] round it; and put it together in a manner agreeable to the earth; and fitted it for giving moisture and rain, and for affording the advantage of dews. (The Antiquities of the Jews — Book 1, Chapter 1)

The 1st century Jewish writer Philo of Alexandria said, "The incorporeal world then was already completed, having its seat in the Divine Reason; and the world, perceptible by the external senses, was made on the model of it; and the first portion of it, being also the most excellent of all made by the Creator, was the heaven, which he truly called the firmament, as being corporeal; for the body is by nature firm, inasmuch as it is divisible into three parts; and what other idea of solidity and of body can there be, except that it is something which may be measured in every direction? therefore he, very naturally contrasting that which was perceptible to the external senses, and corporeal with that which was perceptible only by the intellect and incorporeal, called this the firmament." (On The Creation, chapter 10)

Hans-Georg Lundahl

// Josephus said, "After this, on the second day, he placed the heaven over the whole world, and separated it from the other parts; and he determined it should stand by it self. He also placed a cristalline [firmament] round it; and put it together in a manner agreeable to the earth; and fitted it for giving moisture and rain, and for affording the advantage of dews. (The Antiquities of the Jews — Book 1, Chapter 1) //

While he is not as bad as Talmud, he is explaining Hebrew history to Gentiles whose cosmology involved spheres of crystal - and there was no movement outright rejecting this explanation. It was later systematised with all then known observations by Ptolemy, but spheres of crystal were around since Aristotle.

[One can add same thing applies to Philo]

Comment by Biblical Spotlight

came before Drew posted below as a separate thread.

Drew Gasaway

Hans-Georg Lundahl on Josephus doesn't count any of it that was the wide census on this matter including from the text of scripture. You could make arguments about the understanding on a number of issues and words in Torah things in law using contemporary sources.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I am sorry, did you use any ellipsis in your English, to me it comes out as incomprehensible as certain passages in Tacitus before the teacher parsed and showed "here he omitted an est" and so on ...

[I asked this about Drew's own words above and here below he responds as if I had asked it about the citation from Josephus.]

Drew Gasaway

Hans-Georg Lundahl no this version is on two other sites at least and I have the text on a hard drive but not in my browser. It matches the text in I have on my version.

Josephus: Antiquities of the Jews, Book I
PENELOPE.UCHICAGO.EDU
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/josephus/ant-1.html

At the end of the first part, he indicates he is reading from the Hebrew and not the Septuagint.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

It seems you could have avoided missing my argument if you had written the responde under mine. Perhaps you wanted to force me to scroll past a comment by "Biblical Spotlight" first? Did the comment include any allusion to me?

The idiocy in this is on you, since my comment on Josephus was that in fact this, that his view of the firmament was influenced by Greek astronomy as very little later systematized by Ptolemy. Rabbis in his time would have been as often prone to take it as crystalline, as clergy today are to believe your stuff.

Drew Gasaway

Hans-Georg Lundahl the problem with that argument, as I pointed out, is we have Ezekiel 1:22, virtually every Jewish source having the same cosmology and meaning for these words without even mentioning the issue of Genesis sometimes and other Jews in the first century thought this not just describe what it was but giving a description of the words graphically like Philo who is decades before Josephus. He, in that case, isn't just giving a cultural description but a detailed meaning of meaning. We know from his writings that he read the text in Hebrew and Greek.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

I already refuted your argument on Hezekiel 1:22 under that argument. You'll have to defend it there and to argue from sth else here.

I don't like it when opponents jump from one topic to another as soon as refuted.