Saturday, July 16, 2016

"Windows" in Isaiah 54:12 and 3 Nephi 22:12

Richard Packham wrote the following against the Book of Mormon:

Of course, windows are mentioned frequently in the Bible.   But they are not windows that could be "dashed in pieces."     They are mere openings.   The only Bible passage which might be thought to indicate that ancient windows had some translucent material is Isaiah 54:12, God's promise to Israel captive in Babylon, which in the KJV is translated: "I will make thy windows of agates."     No other modern translation has "windows" here.   The Revised Standard Version translates it "pinnacles," the Jerusalem Bible has "battlements," Today's English Version has "towers," and the Contemporary English Version has "fortresses," with a footnote that the Hebrew text is "difficult" here.   In other words, modern scholars do not agree with the translators of the King James Version.   Difficult or not, the Book of Mormon reproduces the KJV translation, at 3 Nephi 22:12. (source)

Firstly, let us quote the definition of “window” from Webster’s 1828 dictionary:

WINDOW, noun [ G. The vulgar pronunciation is windor, as if from the Welsh gwyntdor, wind-door.]
1. An opening in the wall of a building for the admission of light, and of air when necessary. This opening has a frame on the sides, in which are set movable sashes, containing panes of glass. In the United Sates, the sashes are made to rise and fall, for the admission or exclusion of air. In France, windows are shut with frames or sashes that open and shut vertically, like the leaves of a folding door.
2. An aperture or opening.
A window shalt thou make to the ark. Genesis 6:16.
3. The frame or other thing that covers the aperture.
Ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes.
4. An aperture; or rather the clouds or water-spouts.
The windows of heaven were opened. Genesis 7:11.
5. Lattice or casement; or the network of wire used before the invention of glass. Judges 5:28.
6. Lines crossing each other.

The Hebrew term translated as “window” in Isa 54:12 is‎ שִׁמְשֹׁת which is the plural of  שֶׁמֶשׁ and is the same term which means "sun." As Hebrew lexicons (e.g., HALOT; BDB) argue, while some argue it, in this verse, can refer to a turret, such is a difficult reading as it would require the oddity of a turret/tower made from rubies/agates. Furthermore, while noting that parapets has been forwarded as a possible translation of the term in Isa 54:12, HALOT views such to be questionable ("שִׁמְשֹׁת are not really battlements”).

As for the propriety of the term being rendered “window,” apart from its derivation from “sun,” one old commentator wrote the following:

And I will make thy windows of agates,.... Some sort of which stones, Pliny (Nat. Hist l. 37. c) says, were valued for their clearness like glass; but the stone which bears this name with us is not clear and lucid enough to make windows of. The Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Arabic versions, render it, "of jasper", a stone more fit for that purpose; and it is interpreted of the jasper in the Talmud (T. Bab. Bava Bathra, fol. 75. 1); so "the light" of the New Jerusalem is said to be like unto the "jasper stone", Revelation 21:11. Some take the crystal to be meant, which suits well with windows; the word ("a radice, quae solem significat", Sanctius) for which has its name from the sun, because by means of them the rays and light of the sun are let into a house, and illuminate it.

However one cuts it, there is more plausibility behind the KJV (and BOM) rendition of the underlying Hebrew as “window.”


Additionally, in this same section, Packham tries to argue that glass windows is in view in Ether 2:23. To see how he is misreading this verse, see the post, Glass Windows in the Book of Mormon?