Matthew 1

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meaning of “himtir” in ancient Hebrew (21)


The term "hìmtir" (הִמְטִיר) in ancient Hebrew means "to rain down" or "to make rain". The root word, mentioned in relation to waters in the Hebrew language, connects to something that materializes or becomes tangible, similar to how water from the sky becomes present. Therefore, "hìmtir" specifically refers to the act of causing rain, often in the sense of showering down or delivering something in abundance, such as God's blessings or provisions.

Breakdown of the word:

  • Root: The verb "hìmtir" is derived from a root related to water (mayim) and the concept of tangibility or materialization.
  • Meaning: It signifies the action of rain falling, or God causing rain to fall, thus materializing something from the sky.
Examples in context:

  • While the search results don't provide direct biblical verses for "hìmtir," the concept aligns with God showering down blessings or provisions, such as rain for the land.
 
How did the first Sumerian cities disappear? (22)


The Sumerian cities declined due to environmental factors, such as soil salinization and shifts in river courses, which destroyed agricultural productivity. This decline was exacerbated by internal conflicts between city-states and constant warfare. Finally, external invasions by groups like the Akkadians and Elamites, who capitalized on the weakened state of Sumer, led to the collapse of the civilization.

Environmental Factors

  • Soil Salinization: Over centuries, the irrigation systems that brought water to the fertile land of Sumer also brought minerals. When the water evaporated, these minerals accumulated, making the soil increasingly salty and less suitable for growing crops.
Internal Conflicts

  • Warfare Between City-States: Sumer was not a unified kingdom for much of its history but a collection of independent city-states (like Kish, Uruk, and Ur) that frequently fought with each other for power and resources.
External Invasions

The combination of these environmental, internal, and external pressures led to the gradual collapse of the Sumerian city-states, with the population eventually shifting northwards to newer cities like Babylon and the civilization fading into history until its rediscovery in the 19th century.


Shifting River Courses: The Euphrates and Tigris rivers, the lifeblood of Sumer, would gradually elevate their riverbeds due to sediment buildup. This would cause the rivers to change course over time, leading to the drying up of canals and the abandonment of cities that depended on them.

Vulnerability to Invasion: This constant internal warfare weakened the Sumerian civilization and made it vulnerable to external conquerors.

Elamites and Other Groups: After the Akkadian empire fell, other groups, including the Gutians and later the Elamites, invaded and ruled Sumer. The Elamites delivered a final blow to a resurgent Sumerian kingdom (Ur-III) around 2004 BCE.
 
What was the weather like in Mesopotamia BCE? (23)


In ancient Mesopotamia (BCE), the weather was semi-arid and characterized by hot, dry summers and mild, rainy winters, with spring floods from melting snow providing essential water for agriculture. This climate made civilization heavily reliant on sophisticated irrigation systems to manage the unpredictable but life-giving Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Key Characteristics of the Mesopotamian Climate:

  • Semi-Arid Conditions: The overall climate was dry, with limited natural rainfall.
Impact on Civilization:

  • Agricultural Challenges: The unpredictable nature of the floods and the general dryness required significant labor and organization to construct and maintain canals and levees.
Hot, Dry Summers: The period from late spring to early fall was marked by intense heat and drought.

Mild, Rainy Winters: The season from late fall to early spring saw most of the region's rainfall, which was crucial for replenishing water sources.

Seasonal Floods: Snowmelt in the mountains caused annual spring floods in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Dependence on Rivers: Because of the limited rainfall, Mesopotamian agriculture depended on extensive irrigation systems to channel river water to fields.

Resource Management: The inhabitants developed advanced irrigation and water management techniques to harness the powerful rivers and make the land fertile for crops.

Settlement Patterns: Civilizations flourished along these rivers, taking advantage of the cooler temperatures and reliable water supply provided by the river systems, as noted by Study.com.
 
Evolution of the Mesopotamian climate BCE? (24)


The Mesopotamian climate experienced significant shifts BCE, transitioning from a more moisture-rich mid-Holocene to increasingly arid conditions after roughly 5200 BCE, which coincided with the end of the Late Chalcolithic period and influenced the development of early cities and irrigation techniques. Further periods of reduced rainfall occurred, including events around 3450-3300 BCE, 2600 BCE, and a major dry period from 2200-2050 BCE that reduced precipitation, potentially impacting the Akkadian Empire.

Mid-Holocene (ca. 6500–5500 BCE)

  • Increased Moisture: Early urban development and expansion in Mesopotamia coincided with a period of peak moisture availability, which likely facilitated the growth of early cities by providing favorable conditions for resource extraction.
Late Holocene (after 5200 BCE)

  • Transition to Aridity: Archives show increasing aridity after about 5200 BCE, which is linked to the end of the Late Chalcolithic period and the abandonment of some key settlements, demonstrating the sensitivity of these centers to climatic variability.
Factors Driving Climate Change

  • Western Disturbances: A model suggests that reduced Western Disturbances, which bring moisture from the Mediterranean Sea, played a role in the decrease in precipitation and aridification of the region.
Drier, Unpredictable Rivers: By around 4000 BCE, climates became drier, and rivers like the Tigris and Euphrates became more unpredictable. This caused marshes to retreat in Lower Mesopotamia, necessitating irrigation to make surrounding lands arable.

Climate Events and Impacts:

  • Akkadian Empire Period: A significant drought and cooling event occurred, linked to reduced Western Disturbances and leading to decreased precipitation, impacting agricultural conditions and possibly contributing to the collapse of the Akkadian Empire.

Barley Cultivation: The shift to more drought-tolerant crops like barley became necessary as soil was degraded by drought and salinity.


Salt Poisoning: Continuous irrigation brought salts to the surface, poisoning the soil and making it less suitable for growing wheat, further emphasizing the need for drought-resistant crops.

North Atlantic Cooling: Paleoclimatic records show a drop in North Atlantic Ocean temperatures about 4,100 years ago (around 2100 BCE), which is linked to the aridification of Mesopotamia and could indicate a broader global climatic connection.
 
- Here is an interesting video titled: “Mountains after the flood - Is Genesis history?” (25)




- Here we can see the model of creationist scientists!


- If there was a universal flood, it changed everything, it created a situation of crisis that accelerated everything geologically speaking!


- Then millions of years turned into nothing!


- It is always the same, you don’t take into account one element and you miss everything!


- But it has always been so!


- You make one big mistake and you die!


- The problem is when it concerns a lot of people!


- Remember Jerusalem!


- It was destroyed twice!


- People were warned but they didn’t listen!


- Or they listened to the official version!


- Adults are adults, they have free will!


- Living in a corrupt society doesn’t mean we must accept corruption!


- There is no excuse!


- There is no room for corrupt people in Yah.weh’s world!


- Human society will be cleaned again and again!


- It is written!


- The warning will be told till the last moment!


- But remember: when the door of Noah’s ark was closed, it was too late!


- When it started raining, it was too late!


- And nobody cared except Noah’s family!


- It is a perpetual warning!


- Who cares?
 
Nin Jahouse said (1)

The separation of land from sea also appears in myths of other cultures: Egyptian and Greek, so it was likely an atmospheric phenomenon observable from several locations near a single body of water. Steam rising from the earth indicates that the earth was heated relative to the air, or it may be the observation of artesian or hydrothermal springs, from which warm or hot, evaporating water flowed. There are two possible causes: one is the inflow of polar or cold, moist air over the heated earth, the second is the intense evaporation from the bottom of a drained large body of water, and the third is the artesian springs. This indicates an earlier separation of land from the sea.
 
Nin Jahouse said (2)

In Greek mythology, the beginning of the world is also defined as the separation of land from sea. For example, Ariadne's creation from the "sea foam" and the arrival of other "gods" at a similar time. These myths from different cultures could have described the same phenomenon from different geographical and even, to some extent, climatic perspectives. In both cases, such phenomena would have generated very strong and prolonged storms and sea tornadoes, saturating the air with water and steam. Considering the culture that recorded these events, the proto-Phoenicians, and the location of Eden as a place that no longer exists, as well as the rivers connected to the geographical regions, which are partially known, Eden could have been located on the shallow seabed of the southeastern Mediterranean, specifically in the depressed Nile Delta, which may have actually divided into four rivers running south.
 
Nin Jahouse said (3)

One could have flowed westward near Libya, where Africans were more likely to have lived, while the others separated as described. The order in which they were described could have been disrupted or stemmed from multiple oral narratives, of which this description could have been a synthesis. In such a situation, the last, eastward-flowing river, would have initially flowed toward Babylon and Assyria. The very limited cartographic capabilities of early cultures must also be taken into account. Any mapping based on oral traditions could have resulted in rivers located near each other, even those running opposite courses and from different drainage basins, being combined into one in the narrative. For example, the ancient Greeks (who already had ships at their disposal) similarly connected the unrelated rivers Niger and Nile based on similar oral traditions. The oldest human tribes had only slow travel on foot, or perhaps with the aid of animals.
 
Nin Jahouse said (4)

Therefore, the river that branches east of Eden and flows from the Nile Delta could have been confused with the Euphrates in these accounts, as some travelers from the East claimed it flowed from Eden, while others who traveled further east, where other human tribes lived, might have believed that the Euphrates, so called by the natives, was a continuation of the same river. Alternatively, this assumption was made by someone listening to various stories from travelers or those returning from the East. It must be assumed that in every culture and at every time, there were people traveling for subsistence reasons, seeking conquest, or trade.
 
Nin Jahouse said (5)

It's worth realizing the limitations of the oldest oral traditions from various sources. They couldn't maintain chronological order. Some tribes remembered as long as the oldest people lived, while in others, elders passed their stories down to their descendants, sometimes distorting them. In still others, the greatest treasure was the elders who passed on their knowledge through specially selected individuals with photographic memories. Therefore, some stories dated back about a hundred years, others several hundred, and still others could convey quite precise information spanning tens of generations, even thousands of years. Anyone trying to systematize this knowledge back then (in ancient times) would have had considerable difficulty dating individual events and individuals. Yet such people likely existed in pre-literate times. Suffice it to say that the lifespans of prehistoric people were estimated at over a thousand years, which were likely errors in synthesizing stories from different sources about people with the same names.

- This is particularly interesting!

- Once again it reminds me of dreams and visions in the Bible!

- I’m not speaking about our personal dreams which are imprecise!

- I am speaking about Yah.weh communicating with humans through dreams and visions!

- We know them because we are told about some of them in the Bible!

- And as we read, we can only visualize Yah.weh’s precision!

- For me, it is something incredible and astonishing!

- It is just crazy to think that Yah.weh can transmit information with such precision!

- Think about Pharaoh’s dreams and Joseph visualizing the same dreams and giving their interpretations!

- Think about Nebuchadnezzar's dreams and Daniel visualizing the same dreams and giving their interpretations!

- Then it was transcribed by someone else or the same person in the Bible!

- Think about the dimensions of the ark mentioned in the Bible!

- And it is only a small part!

- You just have to compare human dreams and divine dreams or visions!

- Then if we have a bit of intelligence, we just shut our mouths!

- I remember so many commentaries that don’t show such respect to Yah.weh and the usual human lack of intelligence!

- But we are nothing and we should always remember that!

- It is incredibly useful!
 
Nin Jahouse said (6)

Descriptions of rivers existing but no rain are also plausible and could describe times of very dry ice ages, when their water came exclusively from mountain glaciers and ice sheets. In the case of southern rivers such as the Nile and the Libyan rivers (which have long since disappeared), the source of water was the tropics and subtropics, while in the case of northern rivers, the Eurasian ice sheet. This information therefore dates the oldest accounts to at least 13,000–20,000 years ago, when the last ice age prevailed, or even to the previous ice age over 110,000 years ago (although this is less likely). Various circumstantial evidence suggests that the Mediterranean Sea may have dried out significantly during this period. In turn, calculations of the time needed to wash out and dissolve the sediments so that they are undetectable in drill cores indicate about several thousand years, which means that the period of time that falls in the Holocene since the last glaciation, the Younger Dryas, would be sufficient for this.
 
Nin Jahouse said (7)

Water gushing from the ground is a phenomenon known, for example, in Australia, where the formation of impermeable underground rock layers allows for the construction of artesian wells. In the case of the Mediterranean basin, the source of such water gushing from depressions could have been the Nile Delta itself, where a 2,400-meter difference in elevation in permeable layers would have been sufficient to allow groundwater to emerge with pressures greater than atmospheric pressure.
 
Nin Jahouse said (8)

Thus, the biblical Eden's location north of Egypt and west of the coast of Israel would be a hypothesis supported by several independent physical, climatic, and geological sources, as well as oral sources from a culture whose descendants must have remembered their ancestors being expelled from there. And the sole reason for expulsion from a fertile land that provided sustenance effortlessly could not have been a sudden cataclysm like the Flood; it could have been a slow flooding, forcing emigration without panic—lasting at least months or years. This is the length of time and manner in which the eastern Mediterranean basin could have been flooded.
 
Nin Jahouse said (9)


The main problem with proving the location of Eden would be the probable lack of artifacts that could confirm human habitation on today's seabed. Although this is not impossible, it's possible that fishing vessels trawling the seabed for decades have repeatedly uncovered the oldest traces of human habitation, but these could have been discarded as waste sludge and undated garbage. Even recovered human skulls might not have attracted much attention due to the period of slavery, where people were captured in Africa and transported to Greece or Rome as labor in ancient times.
 
Nin Jahouse said (10)


There is actually two to three times more water on Earth than there is measurable water in the oceans. But this water is bound in minerals, so it doesn't circulate directly.
 
- It’s time for me to speak about a new video!


- I watched it at night!


- It lasts 2 hours!


- Don’t do it like me!


- Do it during the day, not at night!


- It is a lecture done by a geologist!


- It is a creationist scientist!


- It is really interesting!


- I watched the whole video!


- I usually listen to videos and I write at the same time!


- This time I couldn't do it!


- I had to watch it because the geologist shows a lot of documents!


- And there is a lot of information!


- In fact, I will have to watch it again and again!


- We are given a flood model!


- It takes into account that the origin of the flood is a mega-earthquake or a monster-earthquake!


- Probably the biggest one in the history of the earth!


- A group of scientists went together to develop this model!


- They would use a super computer to get a simulation!


- It deals with plate tectonics, subductions, and modifications of magnetic fields!


- But at the difference of the conventional models, the mega-earthquake introduces an acceleration of all phenomena!


- When the conventional models speak about slow motion of plate tectonics, this model speaks about a very fast motion!


- Then millions of years turn into nothing!


- And he explains that when Genesis 7:11 speaks about the fountains of the great deep corresponds to material coming very fast from beneath and turning into huge “geysers”!


- The title of the video is “In-depth Explanation of What Caused Noah's Flood - Dr. Kurt Wise”!


 
- Let’s have a look at the word in Genesis 7:11 translated by fountains!


- Meaning of ma‘·yə·nōṯ in ancient hebrew:


In ancient Hebrew, ma'·yə·nōṯ (מַעְיָנֹת) means "fountains" or "springs" and refers to sources of flowing water that rise from underground. The word is a feminine plural form derived from the singular noun maʿyān, and it is used literally to denote water sources essential for life and water for military strategy, as well as metaphorically to represent sources of joy, satisfaction, provision, and hope.

Literal Meanings and Usage

  • Natural Water Sources: The primary meaning is a natural spring or fountain.
  • Examples in Scripture:
    • In 1 Kings 18:5, it refers to the life-giving springs that were sought after during a drought.
    • In 2 Chronicles 32:4, Hezekiah's engineers stopped the springs and brook to deprive the Assyrian army of water, showing their strategic importance.
    • The Song of Solomon 4:15 uses it for a "spring of gardens".
Figurative Meanings and Themes

  • Sources of Provision: Like a spring providing water, the term can symbolize a source of spiritual or emotional sustenance.
Grammatical Context

  • Feminine Plural: As a feminine plural noun, ma'·yə·nōṯ refers to multiple fountains or springs.
  • Occurrences: The word appears in the Old Testament, notably in Genesis 7:11 and 8:2, where it describes the "fountains of the deep" during the Great Flood.
Purity and Cleansing: Water sources are associated with purity, and this word can carry those connotations.

Joy and Hope: A flowing spring can be a metaphor for unending joy or eschatological hope, such as in Psalm 114:8, which speaks of a spring and God's power to bring forth water.


- Once again, it shows the importance of seeing further than a translation!


- Then we may understand what Dr. Kurt Wise says in the video!


- Please never forget that!


- Don’t listen to those who just stay by a basic translation!


- The original word is always more meaningful than a basic translation!
 
Fonne Deleeuw said:


Eden was located in Mesopotamia south of Eridu, and likely in an area now flooded by the Persian Gulf. It's entirely possible that four rivers converged at that time: the Tigris, Euphrates, Pishon, and Gihon.

The Tigris and Euphrates flow northward, the Pishon westward to Arabia (Havilah), and perhaps the Gihon as well.

It's a bit like how the English Channel used to be just one river, with the Rhine, Meuse, Scheldt, and Thames as tributaries.
 
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