robin cook Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

...

> [Origen] came up with a pyramid shape for his
> ark by battening together statements in the Old
> Testament in a rather awkward way.

I don't think "awkward battening" is an accurate description.

The OT texts were originally written in Hebrew, and then translated at various times into different versions of Greek, Latin, etc.

I previously posted a link to various alternative versions of present-day English translations: [www.biblegateway.com]).

As previously mentioned, the Latin version considered by Origen appears here - [www.google.co.uk], p. 162:

Quote

Et dixit, inquit, Dominus ad Noe: Tempus omnis hominis venit ante me, quoniam impleta est terra iniquitatibus ab eia, et ecce ego disperdam illos cum terra. Fac ergo tibi arcam de lignis quadratis, nidos facies in arca, et bituminabis eam ab intus et a foris bitumine, et sic facies arcam. Trecentorum cubitorum longitudinem arcae, et quinquagiuta cubitorum latitudinem, et triginta cubutorum altitudinem eius collegins faces arcam, et in cubitum consummabis eam in summum.

[Google trans.:] And the Lord said to Noah: The time of every man is come before me, because the earth is filled with iniquity from her; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Therefore, make yourself an ark of square wood, you will make nests in the box, and pitch it on the inside and pitch it on the outside, and so you will make the ark. The length of the ark was three hundred cubits, and the breadth fifty cubits, and the height of it thirty cubits: you shall collect the ark, and you shall finish it in a cubit on the top.

So it depends on how Origen understood, and how later generations were to understand, the phrase: "et in cubitum consummabis eam in summum".

> 15th.C artists used Origen's account to portray
> the ark. Ghiberti came up with a version that
> surprisingly corresponds to reality and my
> original question asked how he might have arrived
> at this - did he have a lost source or, as I
> concede, is it more likely that the resulting
> shape was the result of his own geometrical
> exercises?

The Deluge Ark (Mesoptamian, Hebrew, Greek) is a fictional construct.

The difficulties of imagining it, given the problems associated with translation, have just been outlined.

Ghiberti's Ark corresponds to his understanding of Origen's understanding of a version (translated several times) of an ancient text based on traditions that described Noah's Ark as a sort of cube or rectangle, and not a pyramid.

(Two authors are believed to be responsible for the OT Flood story: the Jahvist (ca. 950 BC), and Priestly. The description of the Genesis Ark's measurements are attributed to the Priestly author, who, as you suggest, might have come into contact with the much older NE version whilst in Babylon. But, clearly, a version of the Flood tradition was in circulation before the Exile.)

Hermione
Director/Moderator - The Hall of Ma'at

Rules and Guidelines

hallofmaatforum@proton.me



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/08/2021 05:14AM by Hermione.