Friday, September 4, 2020

Note on Figure 4 of Facsimile 2

 




In his interpretation of figure 4 of facsimile 2 (a hypocephalus), Joseph Smith said it “Answers to the Hebrew word Raukeeyang, signifying expanse, or the firmament of the heavens . . . “

 

On Raukeeyang, such is simply the influence of Joshua Seixas and his flavour of Hebrew pronunciation and transliteration (Sephardic) of Hebrew רקיע. Most who know Hebrew would use the Ashkenazic method of transliteration (raq’ia).  At the end, I have reproduced p. 5 of the second edition (1834) of Seixas' Manual Hebrew Grammar.


More importantly, one has to ask why Joseph Smith and/or a Jewish redactor of the Abrahamic narrative would, in their adaptation of pre-existing sources, interpret a bird-like figure (here, it is a hawk) as having any association with the biblical “firmament/expanse”? This is just speculation on my behalf, but perhaps the answer can be found in the creation narrative in Gen 1 (a creation narrative is found in chs. 4-5 of the text of the Book of Abraham, which may further strengthen this hypothesis):

 

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day . . . And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. (Gen 1:6-8, 20)

 

In the above, we read of the firmament and its function, and in v. 20, we learn of how celestial bodies and birds fly “in” the firmament of heaven (the Hebrew is which literally reads “upon the face of the raq’ia the heavens [עַל־פְּנֵ֖י רְקִ֥יעַ הַשָּׁמָֽיִם] ). Such would perhaps explain why the final redactor of the Abrahamic narrative would associate a bird-figure with the biblical firmament.



Further Reading

Pearl of Great Price Central


Kevin L. Barney, "The Facsimiles and Semitic Adaptation of Existing Sources


David Bokovoy on the Book of Abraham Facsimiles and the Semitic Adaptation of Existing Sources


Blake T. Ostler, "Abraham: An Egyptian Connection"


Jeff Lindsay, The Book of Abraham Part 2: The Facsimiles and Other Issues


Michael D. Rhodes, The Joseph Smith Hypocephalus . . . Twenty Years Later