22-10-2018, 07:11 PM
Consulting Exodus, one would find that not only the altar was made of shittim wood, but also certain elements of the tabernacle:
These are just a couple of examples. Quite a number of things in Exodus 25-28 are made from shittim wood.
The word "Shittim" is plural for "Shittah", in Hebrew meaning the Acacia tree, and, more specifically (due to the recent advances in botany), the Vachellia.
Modern English Bible texts (what's quoted above is King James's) even do not bother about "shittim", they say "acacia".
I checked if acacia wood does not burn indeed, and was disappointed - not only it does, but it produces much heat as compared with wood of other sorts and is valued for that. It is indeed curious (as recently noted to me by David in private), why acacia (or be't vachellia) would be picked up by the author of Exodus as something that allegedly does not burn.
There seemingly is no place for a translation error, because Exodus is originally in Hebrew and "shittim" is a Hebrew word as noted above. For sure, ancient Hebrews knew how to call the wood. "Shittim" is also used as the name of a historical place in the Old Testament, and its name roughly means "meadow of acacias" as Wikipedia suggests, it's modern Abil-ez-Zeit in Jordan.
This contradiction is only too evident for not to have been discussed in thousands of years of theology, I guess there must be an explanation to this.
Interestingly, I read in the Internet that resin of Acacia Catechu, growing in India, is used to embrocate altars. I was not able to find any serious confirmations to that. But contextually, it is worth bearing in mind, because Latin "cero" ("cere" is one of the readings of a word in f116v) means "to wax". For another fact, arabic gum is no other than acacia resin.
More to follow.
Quote:And thou shalt make boards for the tabernacle of shittim wood standing up(26:15)
Quote:And thou shalt make bars of shittim wood...(26:26)
These are just a couple of examples. Quite a number of things in Exodus 25-28 are made from shittim wood.
The word "Shittim" is plural for "Shittah", in Hebrew meaning the Acacia tree, and, more specifically (due to the recent advances in botany), the Vachellia.
Modern English Bible texts (what's quoted above is King James's) even do not bother about "shittim", they say "acacia".
I checked if acacia wood does not burn indeed, and was disappointed - not only it does, but it produces much heat as compared with wood of other sorts and is valued for that. It is indeed curious (as recently noted to me by David in private), why acacia (or be't vachellia) would be picked up by the author of Exodus as something that allegedly does not burn.
There seemingly is no place for a translation error, because Exodus is originally in Hebrew and "shittim" is a Hebrew word as noted above. For sure, ancient Hebrews knew how to call the wood. "Shittim" is also used as the name of a historical place in the Old Testament, and its name roughly means "meadow of acacias" as Wikipedia suggests, it's modern Abil-ez-Zeit in Jordan.
This contradiction is only too evident for not to have been discussed in thousands of years of theology, I guess there must be an explanation to this.
Interestingly, I read in the Internet that resin of Acacia Catechu, growing in India, is used to embrocate altars. I was not able to find any serious confirmations to that. But contextually, it is worth bearing in mind, because Latin "cero" ("cere" is one of the readings of a word in f116v) means "to wax". For another fact, arabic gum is no other than acacia resin.
More to follow.