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Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
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Author | Topic: basic reading of genesis 1:1 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
in the aggadah of genesis thread, IamJoseph and i were debating what i feel is a rather obvious point of basic reading comprehension, regarding the function of the very first verse in genesis. it's somewhat odd how people can get so hung up on the first verse, but i'd like the chance to discuss it, in depth.
among IAJ's many clearly contrived points, he comes up with this idea that "in the beginning god created the heavens and the earth" means that in that single instant, god created everything that ever existed. what he does, then, with the rest of the chapter which describes that creation (taking the course of six days) is still a mystery to me. i got a bit side-tracked by real life recently, and that thread has since closed. re-opening would be somewhat pointless, as our discussion wasn't quite on topic to begin with. so i'd like to continue here, in a fresh new thread -- mostly because of something i read today. the problem is thus:
IamJospeh writes: The sun was not created in V16 but in V1: 'IN THE BEGINNING GD CREATED THE HEAVENS (GALAXIES/STARS/SUN) AND THE EARTH'. Only here the term created ('bara') is used, not in V16, with the galaxies listed before the earth. as one reading the chapter can see, heaven and earth are created on days two and three respectively, so this should be quite obvious that it just doesn't mean this. in the previous thread, i made a case for my preferred translation, the nJPS, which says, "When God began to create..." i made my case thusly:
arachnophilia writes: and anyways, the verse more properly says "when god began creating heaven and earth..." why should it say that, when both are acceptable grammatically for the hebrew? because of course god created heaven and earth in the beginning. that's the definition of "beginning." the other way is less of a "well duh" point, and serves as a better introduction. part of my above argument, you see, is actually incorrect. both are not acceptable grammatically for the hebrew. here, courtesy of iyov's blog, are the notes of the translator responsible for the new rendering, Harry Orlinsky:
quote: the word used indicates the beginning of an action, which then grammatically follows, not the beginning of time. this was the impression i got from my (incredibly limited) knowledge of hebrew, but this confirms it. here is Rashi's take on the matter: (still the same source on Orlinsky's notes)
quote: the function of genesis 1:1 is an introduction to the rest of the chapter, not to establish what came first. the "beginning" is the beginning god creating. Rashi notes another example:
quote: he includes a second example from Hosea as well, but see the link for that.
quote: so verse 1 is really part of a larger sentance, "when god began creating the heavens and the earth ... god said 'let there be light.'" the middle clause becomes confusing, but this clears it up. the first action of the creation of the heaven and earth is the command for light to exist.
quote: this is a point i commonly bring up: similarity in style to chapter 2. not the strongest point, it makes things look nice.
quote: cross-cultural similarities have to be considered.
quote: this is a point i hadn't actually noticed -- modern hebrew, with which i am more familiar, takes the subject-verb order. biblical hebrew does not. i am not sure i agree with this next part:
quote: the conclusion i agree with, but i think the proper rendering of "unformed" should connotate nothingness, ie, "the earth did not exist."
quote: the god of genesis 1 is a god of names. god creates by speaking things into existance, "let there be..." and then stamping them approval by way of naming them. but this is where IamJoseph's reading get's a little... fruity. for him, the earth and sky aren't formed or even named on days two and three, but on day one. he even goes so far as to try to make a distinction between "day one" (literally what the text has in hebrew) and "first day" which would be consistent with the "second day, third day, fourth day," etc, of the rest of the chapter.
IamJoseph writes: it is written as DAY ONE, not FIRST DAY; while the follow-up days are written as SECOND DAY; THIRD DAY, ETC. If there was no distinction between ONE and FIRST, why would it be written so? my reply was such:
arachnophilia writes: i see two things, that are pretty obvious. one: the first day counted, "one day" is part of a definition. evening + morning = 1 day. so that requires slightly different language. two: the authors wanted to keep the basic numeric theme. instead of saying - - — and having "first" break the pattern, it was actually more poetically consistent to say - - —. i'm sorry, i guess this point doesn't make much sense in english, where "day one - day two - day three" and "first day - second day - third day" are more consistent, but in hebrew "day two" could be mistaken as saying "two days" (when it's really one), and so you have to use "second." and "two" and "second" are just forms of the same word, "one" and "first" are not and "first" would stick out like a sore thumb. here is Orlinsky's note:
quote: apparently, it's quite standard biblical hebrew practice. ironically, the modern word for "sunday" is yom raishon and not yom achad. but the point here should be apallingly obvious by now. the first verse serves as introduction to the seven days of creation. the first action of creation, on the first day, is the creation of light, which god calls "day." the darkness the preceded it was "night" and the two make the first day. the other creative actions, described in genesis 1:1's "heaven and earth" (an idiom for "everything"), happen throughout the rest of the chapter. not at some arbitrary "beginning," not instaneously, and not all at the same time. (bible study forum please. realm of discussion should be genesis 1:1 to 2:4a, with emphasis on interpretation of the first verse.)
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
"In the beginning" is missing the article. well, the article isn't really important, either rendering would be absent the "the" in hebrew. the important point is the form of the word itself, that it uses reshit instead of raishon.
As you (and Rashi and JPS) note, this would normally imply a construct, "In the beginning of ...". But there are rare cases where this form is used and it is NOT a construct. can you provide an example?
The second word, "created" is pointed as a Qal perfect verbal form. It is NOT pointed as the participle "creating" as Rashi translates it (and as it should be if the first word is in construct). But there are some rare cases where a verbal form is used as a participle. past and present tense third-person verbs in hebrew are actually indistinguishable, even in terms of vowels. either rendering is actually acceptable here. though i'm not sure i agree with the infinitive construction "began to create" that the nJPS uses, as it is not an infinitive in the hebrew.
So in the first three words we have some awkward grammar. It could be "In the beginning of God's creating of ..." (Rashi, JPS, Arach) or it could be "In the beginning God created ..." (most other translations). Both are defensible, and both rely on rare grammatical usage. i think perhaps it just sounds a little odd in english.
It seems to me that the Rashi/JPS translation has more problems than the other: 1) If Rashi's translation is correct, the "bara" should be pointed differently OR there should be at least one additional word in the phrase to repair the grammar. it is traditionally emended with different vowel points, actually.
2) Starting with v. 3 (and then God said), the clauses are all in the preterite (waw-consecutive). This preterite sequence needs a referent in the perfect to start it, and "bara" in v. 1 is the only candidate. This means that "bara" must function as a verb, not as a participle. the vav-consecutive, from what i understand, actually functions very simply as a marker for "casual voice" in the verbs. translating literally, you end with "and" at the beginning of every sentance in the bible. frankly, the fact that bara LACKS the vav in front indicates that it is an abnormal verb.
1) The preterite construction implies that the verbal action "created" is completed before the next action, which is "and then God said" in v. 3. i'm not sure about that at all. if it's not the actual verb of the sentance to begin with, the point is totally moot. "and god said..." becomes the independent clause, with "when god began creating..." becoming the dependent. there is no action to be completed in that clause. and, as i pointed out numerous times to iamjoseph, reading the first chapter of genesis to mean that god created everything twice is more than a little bizarre. 1:1 cleary refers to the rest of creation, which is described as taking place over the course of 6 days. therefor, it makes little sense to say this action must be completed. it's clearly not.
2) "heavens and earth" is generally a "merism" for "everything". indeed.
So I would translate it: "In the beginning God created everything." (and this is finished before v. 3 where He says "let there be light"). i wouldn't take the merisms out of the bible. some of the more obscure idioms, maybe. but this one specifically resonates with the rest of the chapter, where god creates both heaven, and earth, and everything else. it's preference, i suppose, but i wouldn't dumb-down the text to such an extent that we rob it of it's poetic beauty.
How can this be? V. 2 seems to be a circumstantial explanatory clause, describing what things were like after the initial creation. actually, we might say before the initial creation. the first thing created (and thus the first thing given a name) is light. whether you take 1:2 as meaning the earth exists in a shapeless manner, or that it does not exist at all, it is clearly in the state before god has done much of anything to it.
Everything was created, but was "waste and empty", i.e. it was unfinished. well, this is exactly the reading i'd like combat here. nothing has been created yet, regardless of how you read verse 1. the more traditional "in the beginning..." still pretty clearly refers to the rest of the chapter. not a first and second stage of creation, or two separate creations as the gap theorists might like. it is one singular creation, spanning six days. verse 1 is an introduction to the concept, not an act of creation itself.
The rest of the account from v. 3 onward seems to be a "finishing" of the creation, all described from a reference frame on earth. well, no. one can see pretty clearly in verses 6-8 that god first commands heaven to exist, and then gives it a name. "heaven" is one of those things in verse 1:1. that's a little more than "finishing" work, that's a pretty substantial part of it. the point is even worse if you recognize that as a merism for "everything." if god made everything already, how does he keep making stuff? Edited by arachnophilia, : No reason given.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" Genesis 1:1. Everything was completed in one day thank you for ignoring the entire argument made in the openning post, which was mostly about the grammar in the original hebrew, and how it should be translated. i would think that a hebrew scholar of six years would have eaten that right up.
He doesn't, He just has to remake some things that got messed up between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. this is evidently not the case, due to the grammar, which indicates that 1-3 is a single sentance, with a dependent clause followed by a parenthetical, followed by the independent cluase. that was the argument above. further, there is no evidence of anything getting "messed up" between the first and second verses. you (and the gap-theorists) have to insert this into the text, where it does not belong.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
No, this follows the normal grammar of the preterite (waw-consecutive). [Note: the preterite (waw-consecutive) is the usual form for narrative. It implies a consecutive sequence of events.] indeed, it does imply that in most cases. but it also often begins a sequence of events, as it most likely does here. the point is that the first verse is not actually part of that sequence, but the introduction to the sequence itself. it's a dependent clause, not the first action.
The grammar of the waw-consecutive construction works as follows: The first verb in the narrative is in the perfect (e.g. "bara" ="created" in 1:1) actually, you can't say that for sure. this particular tense in hebrew can be either past or present. it's not equivalent to the "past perfect" tense in english, ie: "god had created..."
The subsequent verbs in the narrative have an IMperfect form, with a "waw" prepended to the verb. But the verb is actually translated as a perfect, with "and then" prepended to it. (e.g. "wa yo'mer" = "and then said" in 1:3) that's not quite how it works, actually. the vav on the beginning is simply casual narrative voice. there is no reason to add a "then" forcing it to be at least a second action when the hebrew does not imply this at all. the vav-consecutive is simply the normal stlye of a verb in the torah.
Since "and then God said" in v. 3 follows this construction (waw + imperfect), it must refer back to a perfect form earlier in the account which has no waw. There are three possibilities for which verb this is: 1) the "bara" in 1:1, which means that "created" functions as a perfect verb, not a participle, and the translation must be "In the beginning God created". have a look for a second at the first verse of, say, joshua.
quote: notice something? it starts with the vav as well. what is it referring back to? judges begins this way too. so does samuel, and kings. and for that matter, so does exodus, numbers, and leviticus (but not deuteronomy). now, some of these books are abitrary divisions. but some are separate works, with nothing to refer back to at all. even in the other cases, as above, with moses's death, the end of deuteronomy is clearly an ending -- but it starts with a vav too. so this argument is simply not true at all. a vav-consecutive needs not refer backwards to anything. it's just the casual narrative voice.
2) possibly the "hayeta" in v. 2, which would have to be translated "became". This means that v. 2 is a main clause, not a circumstantial clause. Vv 1-2 would then be translated either "In the beginning of God's creating of the heavens and the earth, the earth became waste and empty" or "In the beginning God created ... And the earth became waste and empty". But this view has a problem: if the verb is used to mean "became" there should be a "beth" prefix before the predicate "tohu wa bohu", according to my PhD Hebrew friend. sure that wasn't a lamed? bet usually means "in" or "at" where lamed means "to." maybe it can be used that way, but i would have written — ‘ had that been what i meant, and not ‘. the order of the verb and the subject is also important here. since this is not a vav-consecutive, it indicates that this is a parenthetical clause.
3) possbily an implied verb which is not explicit. the only verbs i'm aware of that are implied is in the present tense. but since this is past tense, they show up.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
(i've ignored the waw-consecutive points, because they are addressed above)
This is a simple sentence with a single clause.... 1) The first verse may be a main clause telling us an action which God did prior to the action in v. 3. This is the traditional view, adopted by Luther and Calvin (Waltke, p. 58). but that is evidently not the case. look at the other examples that Rashi provides:
quote: "b'reishit" is clearly an indication of a dependent clause. as for tradition, i believe that rashi antedates calvin and luther by a good 400 years, plus. and spoke hebrew natively.
2) The first verse also may be a a main clause acting as a summary heading for the entire creation account. This is the view taken by Waltke (p. 58). i think that even with the "traditional" translations, this is the most obvious view, as the creation of "heaven and earth" (merism or not) are clearly described in the rest of the chapter.
3) Instead of a main clause, the first verse may be a temporal clause modifying verse 3, “In the beginning when God began to create . God said, “Let there be light” . ” with verse 2 as parenthetical. This translation is followed by Rashi, the Jewish Tanakh, and some other translations and study Bibles, and is gramatically valid (Kidner, p. 43). Alternatively, it may be a temporal clause modifying verse 2, “In the beginning when God began to create . the earth was formless . .” This interpretation was followed by Ibn Ezra (Wenham, p. 11). yes, that is valid. but,
In this interpretation, the account is not the original creation of everything, but is a re-creation from already existent material. This causes some theological difficulties. this is not. in no way does that begin to follow. even if verse 1 simply modifies verse 2 (and NOT 3), it might merely be talking about the initial state of creation, before god acted. "when god began creating heaven and earth, the earth was unformed and empty." similarly, "when i began writing this post, the message box was empty." it doesn't imply that anything was destroyed.
It seems to me that the first view above is the best fit. I think it's saying that the first act of creation was to create everything; the second act was to create (unveil?) light. this make little sense to me. if god has already created everything in one act, how can there be a second act of creation?
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
I agree that light is the first thing given a name, and that this is signfiicant. But is this creation in 1:3 really the first thing created? yes. ignore the first verse for a second, pretend that it doesn't exist, and that the account starts here. the rest of creation follows (somewhat) logically from it.
If so, where did the land and water come from? 1:2 speaks of the waters already existing. On Days 2 and 3, these waters are separated (first from the heavens, then from the land). There is no explicit mention of their being created (or of the land being created). So I see two options: i think you answer your own question. land is created by the collection of water into specific places. water pre-exists, as it is the primordial element. quite standard ideology for the ancient near-east, actually.
1) the account is NOT a creation of everything, but starts with pre-existing material (waters, and probably land). water "doesn't count." it sounds strange, i'm sure, but it doesn't. water is thematically the antithesis of creation. god doesn't create darkness/night, either. rather, he defines it by giving it a name, and separating it from day. water is the same thing -- it's defined by its separation from land, but it need not be created. water/darkness are thematically linked, and represent chaos. god's creation is the separation of things, creating order in the chaos. but the chaos pre-exists.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Can you point to any other biblical examples of this usage with "bara"? no, the two do not appear in conjunction elsewhere. we are left to examine other instances of b'reishit. bara is not particularly special.
I find that "bara" is classed as a "telic" verb, like "die" or "sell", so "only finds meaning at the end of a process". i have never heard anything to that extent.
(BTW, how do you edit Hebrew characters in this window? I can copy and paste yours, but can't figure out how to edit them.) the text above is a copy from mechon-mamre's side-by-side hebrew/english tanakh. for writting myself, i use a (semi-phonetic) web applet. i find this to be the least complicated method.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
I disagree; the article IS important. If the article were present on "beginning" ("ba-reshit" instead of "bereshit") there would much less debate. that's not an article, that's a vowel point -- which were added several hundred years after christ, and are not part of the original text. and REALLY easy to screw up, btw.
Is 46:10 uses exactly the same form "bereshit" as Gen 1:1, with no article: I foretell the end from the beginning (JPS) (There are at least half a dozen other examples, but this is about the best.) hmm, ok, that's a good one.
past and present tense third-person verbs in hebrew are actually indistinguishable, even in terms of vowels. either rendering is actually acceptable here. But this is not the issue. well, that's what i mean. it's not an issue -- you can read the word either way, so this does not hamper the construct reading.
Yes, THIS is the issue. To take it as a construct (a la Rashi) requires translating it "in the beginning of the creating of God", i.e. "in the beginning of God's creating". yes. i would like to add, possibly at the expensive of my own case, that a possessive is mysteriously missing. i'm not sure how big of an issue this is, based on the grammar.
For this "bara" MUST be read as an infinitive. But as you note, it is not an infinitive form. well, this is just a quibble -- i would render it "when god began creating..." the infinitive is just an awkward translation into english where it isn't needed. in either language. "creating" works just fine, and is more literal. the nJPS isn't concerned with precision in translating the grammar exactly as it is in the hebrew -- they're more concerned with reflecting the ideas and making it read smoothly in english. i prefer to split the difference between idiomatic and literal. that's all i meant.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Yes; when a preposition is prefixed to a noun with article, the article disappears as a character and becomes a vowel point. And I agree that it is very easy to mess up. But as my Hebrew scholar friend claims, the first few verses of the Bible would have been widely memorized and repeated, and it is much less likely that the Jewish community would have lost the vowel points on this verse. there are all kinds of vowel copy errors all over the bible, and even a few consonant errors (nun becomes bet, etc). and this is a particularly easy one to mess up, because the emphasis is off this vowel. for bet- and mem- and vav- prefixes, i don't even pronounce the vowel (which is why you'll see me render them in latin letters as b' or m' or v' even though this is NOT the accepted standard). and because most people memorize it in a spoken or chanted form, there's little gaurantee. this is the easiest kind of vowel to lose, or screw up, and it's the kind of precision of subtlety that i don't feel is exceptionally important. it's sort of like making an entire point out of comma placement in english -- it can be quite important, yes, but it's also commonly screwed up.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
quote: oh, right, duh! sorry. it's quite possible that bara elohim is such a construct. i'm not familiar with any other such uses, however.
I noted that for Rashi's translation "bara" MUST be read as an infinitive, though it is not written as one. but as a contruct, it need not be. it would just have to function as a noun -- a gerund not an infinitive:
But your translation WOULD need some sort of possessive marker, because it would not follow the noun construct paradigm. A construct requires two or more nouns next to each other, as noted in wikipedia. To be in construct, the word "bara" must act as a noun. It cannot do this while a finite verb; the only way for it to act as a noun is to be an infinitive. i'm not sure about gerunds in hebrew. let me take some time to research that a bit, and see. from a brief look (i'm at work) it doesn't seem that they look like that, but bara is a strange verb to begin with.
(Note: there may be some terminology and usage differences between biblical and modern Hebrew. I have studied biblical but not modern Hebrew, whereas I suspect that you are more fluent in modern Hebrew.) not sure i would say "fluent." there's a pretty good chance you know more than i do. Edited by arachnophilia, : typo
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
i'm not particularly well versed in greek or latin. in fact, i know basically nothing at all. from what i can tell, the word "theory" does contain the theos root -- but it's important to remember of course that the origin of a word may not bear much on the current usage. and in this case, in western societies, religion was the only form of academics for a thousand years or so.
i don't want to junk up this thread too much with an aside, but do you have a link to the conversation that prompted the PNT? i'll look at it, and if i feel so inclined, i'll comment once the thread goes through.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
after looking at the "all topics" page and wondering where this page went, i went looking through the bible study forum, to discover it was the very last post.
somehow, we've been posting more than 4 years in the past!
quote: it's funny to have posts from before you joined:
quote: Edited by arachnophilia, : subtitle
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
ah -- after a look or two, i'd like to revise my opinion. it seems you are overlooking something. something i missed on the first pass too. i'll save it for the appropriate thread, should it be promoted.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
well, it's short. so i'll add it here.
thea and the feminine case of theos appear to be homonyms.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1373 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Then if the Bible is God's Word you are calling God a liar. Unless it was made in the beginning as stated. why is it so hard to understand that either:
So you are saying that an eternal God who is Omnipresent (everywhere), Omniscient (knows everything), Omnipotent (all powerful) created the mess you find in Genesis 1:2 there's no "mess" in verse 2. there's nothing. at the beginning of god's creation, there was nothing. and that's exactly what it says.
You got heavens in Genesis 1:1 that is supposed to be singular. oh look. one more reason to doubt your six-years-of-biblical-hebrew claim.
quote: quote: quote: i mean, come on. that word is just always used in plural in hebrew. when god gives a name to the singular object in verse 8, the name he gives is plural. in fact, the name is derived from the "waters" above and below, mayim, which also always takes a plural, because in hebrew the singular of either is somewhat nonsensical.
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