basic reading of genesis 1:1

i'll be more than happy to, the second you present something that actually is more than 1200 years old.until then, we would just be debating the imaginations of an internet crank -- you might as well have it say anything you want to, because those documents just don't exist. you are assuming a particular document, of a particular age, in a particular writing system and language, and it just doesn't actually exist in the possession of scholars -- or anywhere known to anyone outside of your imagination.present your document, and we'll discuss it.

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it's a noun. please stop looking things up in lexicons. you can't even do it correctly. people who can read never have these difficulties. you know very well that "god" is not plural. look harder. it's no longer worth it to repeat myself so often. try harder. there are two whole chapters in that book on infinitives. surely you can glean something from those chapters, including their multitude of examples that lack prefixes, or even prepositions of any kind. you learned a rule, sure, but that rules is not an accurate reflection of every usage, and does not exclude other usages. ... i think you should seriously consider the possibility that you're simply wrong. see the bit you've quoted. ... of semantics.yes, i just accused you of semantics in an argument about grammar. of

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I can't find the page that makes such a statement. That means you haven't presented one yet.

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I do know that a preposition directly infront of or on a noun turns the noun into a prepositional phrase.

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That is found on page 68 of an introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax by Bruce K. Waltke.

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...

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that should be your first clue something's very wrong. yeah, no. it looks like it's giving stardard vowel pointings to any three letter root, and thus making up words. i'm not aware of any usage of מים as a verb -- it's one of the earliest "exception" dual nouns you learn in hebrew. this is not something that anyone who knows the slightest bit of hebrew ever messes up -- and yet you insist on it. but then again, for the kinds of errors you routinely make, this isn't particularly a surprise.you are welcome, of course, to provide an example of any sentence that uses מים as a verb, in biblical or modern hebrew. no, you have a crap source. you evidently can't tell the difference between a crap source and a good source, if you're using this nonsense over waltke, or BDB, or anything else, really. you do understand that i actually laughed audibly when i saw that? i wouldn't dream of paying for that crap. which, for biblical hebrew at least, makes it wrong. these sources happen to be correct. the distinction between "dual" and "singular" are moot, of course, as dual nouns are nouns that look plural but act singular. i have argued it already. in fact, as i mentioned above, "dual nouns are nouns that look plural but act singular." when you have a dual noun, and it's the subject of a clause, it's easy to tell if it's singular: the verb takes singular conjugations. for instance, in genesis 1:1, ברא אלהים, is a singular verb, and a dual noun. the noun acts in the singular, as is translated "god" instead of "gods". there are of course other contextual hints. a person who reads hebrew has no issues with this stuff. no. i'm getting tired of you asking for the same information over and over again because you've failed to understand it. there are two whole chapters in that book on infinitives. i have presented several examples from those chapters in this thread already. i cannot do more than hand you the textbook and copy examples from it. you're just going to have to try harder. it means i don't actually need to say anything, because your argument is nonsense and contradictory. yes. i suggest you look it up. here's a hint: i've given you a textbook already. i don't understand it either. perhaps you should be more careful with spelling next time. and, um, find a better source. yes, you do. or rather, you should. infinitives are nouns.

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So where do you get the 'of' from?

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context.

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oh, okay, so you can look things up at wikipedia. great. yes, it's all a giant jewish conspiracy. you're welcome to start a thread on why you feel the LXX is or is not a good translation in comparison to other sources.there are some key differences between the MT and the LXX that the DSS has backed up, yes. but these are by far the exception. mostly, the same things -- and it's important to remember that for particular concerns like this one, that the LXX is a translation. it might inform how the text was read when the text was translated, but it doesn't particularly supersede the implications of the source language, even if the particular document of the source isn't wonderful.you're welcome to make an argument from greek in this thread if you would like, but i do not expect to be wowed given your grasp of hebrew. and english.

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yes, ICANT. it's all a big evil atheist/jewish/academic conspiracy. take your pick. no, you made yet another big old goof. you didn't say, "look at what these crazy people say!" you posted it to bolster your argument. it's wrong. you're basing yours on (faulty) assumptions and stuff you've made up. i think basing it on actual research is a much better standpoint. ... i don't care. no, it's crap. crap is universal.textbooks from the 1500's are different because we know more things today. in 1500, nobody had been to the moon. nobody had discovered dinosaurs. photography didn't exist. most people thought the earth was the center of the universe. older ≠ right. in fact, the more we progress, the more likely we are to get things right. it's most certainly not whatever bullshit someone puts out just gets accepted and becomes the new "truth" leading us away from the real truth. okay, so i made a mistake above. when i said that the tenses should have been your first hint? that should have been your second. the fact that someone discarded it should have been your first hint. no. you still don't understand grammar at all, do you? have you ever taken an english grammar course? like, in elementary school? it might be helpful to actually understand what these terms mean.perfect and imperfect are aspects. in english, we can have perfect or imperfect verbs in any tense -- biblical hebrew doesn't have proper tenses, and uses imperfect roughly like future tense and perfect roughly like past or present tense.finite and infinitive are forms. in english, only finite verbs can have tenses. in biblical hebrew, it's irrelevant because there aren't proper tenses. perfect and imperfect are the two aspects of the finite verb form.on top of that, there are several stems (something like "moods") that hebrew verbs can take: qal, nifal, piel, hifil, etc. these stems describe all verbs, finite or infinitive.so in biblical hebrew, tense is made up of form, aspect, and stem. though listing both form and aspect is generally redundant: if it's finite, you just list the aspect, if it's non-finite, you just say "infinitive" as it can't have an aspect. okay, so having looked it up, apparently your text that lists מים, שמים and אלהים as dual is in fact mistaken. they are singular, but morphologically dual.however, it is also incorrect that dual nouns always refer to pairs -- just things that are typically (or conceptually) paired. the can, in fact, be found with other numbers, and the text give several examples. no, i'm saying you can't. no, there are places in the bible where it's plural. it lists quite a few of them in points 1 and 2. but notice that this entry continues for like two pages? points 3 and 4 are all singular. it helps to read the whole thing. or at least skim it. or check to see if it's there. don't just go with the first entry -- ignoring usage leads to time machines and cd-roms. i have, you're just a crank. the truth of the matter is that you can't always realistically explain something so that every idiot can understand it. some things take research, and knowledge, and just generally not being a crank. your failure to understand, at this point, is your failure to understand, not my failure to explain. you've been given outside sources, textbooks, etc. it's not just me that can't explain it to you -- it's anyone, including the people who write professionally and academically on the subject. the people who are the very best at explaining this stuff. that means nobody can explain it to you, and that makes you a crank. no, notice i gave some specific examples? ...yes. i do too: you went one too far. you skipped right over the noun, and went right to verb it might possibly be derived from. this is precisely the same practice the peggs used to find time machines and cd-roms.

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sooooo.... conspiracy then?look, scribes existed because papyrus and vellum didn't last too well. yes, if carefully preserved, they can last a long time. but touched by human beings? they deteriorate. there are always complete fluke miracles like the DSS preserved over 2,000 years, but they are by far the exception. most of the oldest texts we have are in stone.they're not junking the old texts because they say things they didn't want you to know. indeed, if anything, the DSS mostly backs up the masoretic text. it's not 100% like the MT or the LXX. quite wasting my time here, repeating the same old nonsense. go start another thread about the topic you want to discuss. a text on hebrew grammar might well use the LXX, yes. but not as hebrew grammar. instead, as evidence of how that grammar was read and then translated into another language. which is what the LXX is good for -- it's a record of people of a certain read the text and thought it should be written in another language. it also, perhaps, may indicate a few places that have changed for whatever reason -- mostly scribal (copyist) errors.but as i said, stop beating around the bush. you are more than welcome to make an argument from greek in this thread.

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