Re: Request for information of the word "heaven" versus "the heavens"

From: Douglas G. Kilday (fufluns_at_chorus.net)
Date: 03/13/05 

Date: Sun, 13 Mar 2005 16:53:03 -0000

"Helmut Richter" <a282244@mail.lrz-muenchen.de> wrote ...
>
> [...]
>
> Today's distinction between a mostly (albeit not exclusively)
> religious "heaven" and a meteorological "sky" seems not to be very
> old: the King James Version of the Bible (1611) uses "heaven" for
> both, and "sky" only infrequently in contexts where "clouds" might
> also have served the purpose.
>
> In the Hebrew language from which the Bible was translated, there is
> only one word for both, "shamayim". It is, like the word for "water",
> a plural word with no singular. This may have influenced the choice of
> Bible translators to use "heavens" or "waters" at least in some
> places, and to restrict "heaven" or "water" to the less poetic or less
> religious contexts. I wonder how much evidence there is for English
> "heavens" or "waters" prior to that influence.

Ælfric (ca. 1000) rendered <ha$$amayim> in Gen. 1:1 as <heofenan> (sing.
acc. fem.), and <hammayim> in 1:2 as <wæteru> (pl. acc. neut.). In
subsequent verses of Genesis he continued to use 'heaven' as singular and
'waters' as plural.

Ælfric's feminine <heofene> is less usual in Old English than the masculine
<heofon>. The latter is used as a paradigm word by Moore and Knott, with
all three case-forms in the plural, so it must have occurred reasonably
often in the plural; unfortunately I have no examples of this usage in
context.

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