Donna,Thank you for replying.When I read the Bible, I read that the the seven angels travel with, and pour out from, their filled vials.If I was going to try to translate, or interpret those scriptures into some tongue that currently doesn’t have a Bible in their language,I would certainly not want to leave them scratching their heads, wondering about this.You had mentioned a few descriptions, which apparently can be found in various Greek lexicons:
broad shallow bowl, a deep sauceror a shallow and flat bowl
I would be hard pressed trying to convince them, in their tongue, that these would be chosen vessels to transport and pour from, when full.I also am hard pressed to think that it makes sense in our language.What, and how, people understood things, two thousand years ago, in Koine Greek, may not be as simple as the lexicons imply to us, in English, today.
In the past, I had been an assistant pharmacist, and not only filled prescriptions, but made various liquid mixtures, and powdered mixtures.There were many containers, jars, bottles, cylinders, etc., but vials were specific containers, used for very specific purposes.They were the ones that we carried the mixtures from the back to the front of the pharmacy, and they were what we poured from.Then I also worked in laboratories for 9 years, and again, most vessels are wrong for transport and pouring.Even beakers, with indentations to pour out from, unless a lot of care is taken, over pour, or under pour, and unless they are not full, are not good to transport with.Vials, and also flasks, with vial type necks and tops, are suitable to pour with, without spillage.To get accurate transfers, down to a single milliliter, pipettes are used, but not for transport from one part of the lab to another, with our finger on the top.But pipettes are gravity drained, or plunger pushed, and not poured.
I cannot understand, why people, for years, kept trying to teach me that they were bowls, rather than vials.Especially when I read “vials” in my Bible.