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When Judaism Meets Science
Posts Tagged ‘Sennacherib’
The Metals of the Hebrew Bible: Gold and Silver
Of the ninety-two elements naturally occurring on Earth, the Hebrew Bible (the “Tanach”) mentions only six. The two most abundant elements in the Earth’s crust, by mass, are oxygen and silicon. Even though together they account for just over three-quarters of the mass of the crust, the Tanach says nothing about them. Aluminum is the next most common element, accounting for about eight percent of the mass of the crust, but it, too, is unknown, or at least unmentioned, by the authors of the Tanach.
The elements that the Hebrew Bible does identify, ordered by the frequency of mention, are gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, and lead. Uniquely, in the Book of Numbers (at 31:22), they are mentioned together and in that order as metals that can be purified by fire. Sometimes they are mentioned elsewhere in different combinations and various orders. Mostly, though, they are mentioned separately , although gold and silver are often cited jointly.
Gold, zahav in Hebrew, is the most frequently mentioned metal, being identified almost 400 times, according to one concordance. Silver, or kesef, is mentioned the next most frequently, almost 300 times. Counting copper is a bit problematic as the Hebrew word for copper is nechoshet, but that word is also translated sometimes as bronze and sometimes as brass, both of which are alloys of copper. Despite the frequency of their mention, gold, silver, and copper together account for less than 0.007% of the Earth’s crust. Still, the Torah mentions these three metals as important, for instance in the adornment of the Tabernacle. (See, e.g., Ex. 31:3-5.)
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The Battle for Jerusalem and the Origin of Fake News — 2700 Years Ago
Sennacherib Prism,
Oriental Institute, U. of Chicago
How can you tell what is true and what is not in the Hebrew Bible (the “Tanakh”)? How can you separate fact from fiction and fable? In some instances, science can help. For instance, both geological and archaeological records confirm that the whole earth was not submerged in flood waters during the last six thousand years, and evolutionary biology demonstrates that all land animals and birds do not owe their existence to creatures that were on a vessel floating on those mythical waters. Similarly, we know that the Sun did not stop in the sky for twenty-four hours during a battle at Gibeon, for that would have meant that the Earth ceased to rotate during that period of time, which, in turn, would have caused cataclysmic consequences neither reported in the story nor elsewhere. (See Gen. 7:6-8; Josh. 10:12-14.)
From a modern perspective, then, it is reasonably easy to identify some biblical stories that are not factually accurate. They may well contain worthy moral or other lessons, but as factual recitations of actual occurrences, they fail.
At the same time, there are other stories in the Tanakh that seem quite plausible, even contemporary in their nature. How can we tell if they are historically true or historical fiction or simply imagined? One such story concerns the siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrian king Sennacherib (pronounced Seh-NACK-er ib) during the reign of the Judahite king Hezekiah about 2700 years ago. read more