Lula posts:
My Douay Rheims version which St.Jerome translated from the Latin and the Latin from the Hebrew has it as "earth". That's all I need to know. When that is put together with the rest of the Genesis account that describes the underground cataclysmic power of that event plus the evidence from outside of Sacred Scripture, then it makes perfect sense that it was indeed a world-wide event. If the Flood was local, why were the birds included on the Ark...they would have simply flown away. Certainly people had migrated beyond Mesopotamia by the time of the Flood. That means if it was a local flood, then those people beyond the area wouldn't have been affected by it....yet, Scripture tells us that the Flood was God's judgment on all the people for their sins.
SoDaiho posts:
Yet, Lula, you must try to understand the translations in terms of the knowledge of the translators at the time of the translation.
OF Sacred Scripture this is what I understand...that there is no need for the sacred writer to understand the full import of the words which he/she wrote under Divine inspiration. When the text was originally written, only God could know the full dimension of the passages. Certainly the prophets themselves didn't see all the implications of what they were writing.
In terms of translations of Sacred Scripture, I wasn't just name-dropping by saying I've got the very best translation available in the Douay Rheims translated by St.Jerome in 405AD. That's why I have no problem with its use of the word "earth" so many times in Genesis.
Leauki posts #811
The word "eretz" is used a lot in the Bible and is variously translated as "earth" or "land", but it always meant the same,
If Leauki thinks it means "land", well that's OK too. After that, we must take the word "earth" or "land" and look for its meaning---that is-- what God intended the text to mean. To discover the meaning of the word, whether it is "earth" or "land", we need to keep very much in mind the unity and content of passage itself, then of the chapter and then of the whole of Scripture, (and for me, the living Tradition of the Church and faith), along with the benefit of outside historic and scientific information.
Read "eretz" literally and you don't get a world-wide flood.
I reiterate, when all the other passages are added and that is put in the full context of Scripture, then the Flood seems to have been a world-wide event.
If one just looks at the word here or there, without taking anything else into consideration, then it's easy to see that one might come to the conclusion that it was a local event.
lula posts:
My Douay Rheims version which St.Jerome translated from the Latin and the Latin from the Hebrew has it as "earth". That's all I need to know.
You really don't read what I write, do you?
I told you that "earth" didn't mean a few hundred years ago what it does today.
Ok, here is Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God created heaven and earth."
Please explain what Genesis 1:1 meant to those people hundreds of years ago if it doesn't mean what it does today. To me, Genesis 1:1 use of the word "earth" means the God created the entire planet.
Also, just to assuage my curiosity, what is the word Hebrew word for "earth" of Genesis 1:1 and is that the same or different from the earth in Genesis 7:7,22 "Ands he was 600 years old when the waters of the flood overflowed the earth. 22 And all things wherein there is the breath of life on the earth, died"?
