basic reading of genesis 1:1

Hi tudwell, Then if the Bible is God's Word you are calling God a liar. Unless it was made in the beginning as stated. 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 1:2Was it because He did not know what He wanted to do. Knowing everything kinda rules that out.Was it because He was not able to get around to all the things that needed taking care of? If He was everywhere that was no problem.Was it because He was too weak? He can do anything He desires to do, being all powerful so that could not have been the problem.So what was the problem? You got heavens in Genesis 1:1 that is supposed to be singular.Since there are three heavens, why would that be a contradiction?Have fun,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

why is it so hard to understand that either:

1. "the beginning" encompasses the first seven days, or
2. "the beginning" is the opening of a dependent clause, ie: the beginning of god's creation, as the grammar in the hebrew indicates?

these are not especially hard concepts, and both make a lot more sense than inserting a whole second creation based on half a sentance that you are misreading to begin with. 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. oh look. one more reason to doubt your six-years-of-biblical-hebrew claim.

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‘, ‘ —, ,
b'reishit bara elohim et ha-shamim v'et ha-aretz...
"when god began creating the skies and the ground..."

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—, ‘
v'yo'amar elohim, "yehey raqia b'tok ha-mayim..."
and god said, "exist, firmament in the middle of the waters..."

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— —,
v'yo'qera elohim l'raqia "shamim" ...
and god gave a name to the firmament: "heavens" ...

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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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I agree likely all of the other bible versions say heavens however find it interesting the akjv used the singular.A basic reading puts the universe before genesis 1:1 and the stars were not made on day 4 "he made" is italized meaning words added by the translators.A basic reading of genesis with the spirit moved upon the waters means the Word is saying the earth existing prior to genesis 1:1 but without an atmosphere or dry land (the earth). It says it was void formless with water upon the face of the deep.When he said let there be light the sun became a star in that it was about creating the firmament he called heaven and the dry land he called the earth and the waters mentioned in genesis 1:2 were gathered into one place and called seas.On day 4 he made the sun to rule the day and the moon and the stars to rule the night. It does not mean he made them on day 4 only made them to rule the day and the night.A basic reading says he placed them in the firmament of the heaven. Its interesting it did not say heavens it saying he placed them in the firmament of heaven. This means hes talking about the planet earth's heaven not the heavens, etc...Nothing wrong with the sun only being a star approximately 12,000 years the nucleur evidences actual does not prove its not young according to the answers from genesis folk, but
interestingly a basic reading of genesis 1:2 supports it was not a star until genesis 1:3. Then you hear the commercial labs are getting 14C readings in layers that were not suppose to be young being fudged by the commercial labs.
In light of such fraud you begin to appreciate the inerrancy of the written Word, etc....Enjoy !!!!!!!!+++++ Edited by johnfolton, : No reason given.Edited by johnfolton, : No reason given.Edited by johnfolton, : No reason given.Edited by johnfolton, : No reason given.Edited by johnfolton, : No reason given.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Shorted "+" line.

Reply to: Arachnophilla (Way)You should see my proposed new subject, "Creation is a Participle = Future."After you read the "real" words everything is different."Simple, he will believe to all of speaking, and prudent, he will understand to blessing" - Prov 14.15.sl33w

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Arach was kicked off the forum, friend. He was a naughty boy, which you can clearly see in his off-the-wall tiradeAs you can see, he was an absolute monster. The world is now safer not having him in it. Edited by Nemesis Juggernaut, : edit to add link

Hi arach, I can agree that the beginning lasted until God ceased from His creating in Genesis 2:3.God declared that creating period lasted for 6 light periods and 6 dark periods, which with His day of ceasing to create concluded the first week.. It is not a dependent clause and the grammar does not indicate that it is.I understand you believe that reshith is in the construct state in Genesis 1:1.So lets take this a little at the time.What do you define as the construct state in Biblical Hebrew?God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

Hi arach, I didn't ignore it I just gave you what the text says.So I will see if I can appease you.In Message 1 you said: This comment followed this quote.

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1-3: When God began to create.
For some 2,200 years ” since the Septuagint version of the Torah was made by Jewish translators for the Jewish community of Alexandria, Egypt ” all official translations of the Bible have rendered Hebrew bereshith bara elokim mechanically, "In the beginning God created." There are several cogent reasons, each independent of the others, for rejecting the traditional rendering as incorrect, and for accepting the temporal ("When...") construction.
(a) The first vowel in the first word, be(reshith), as distinct from a form ba(reshith), indicates that the word is in the construct (rather than in the absolute) state, and has the meaning "In the beginning of (God’s creating . . .)" rather than "In the beginning (God created...)." Indeed, it is not even bareshith (the form doesn’t happen to occur in the Bible) but barishona that one would have expected here for “In the beginning (God created...)."

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At least the author of your quote recognized that the Jews who translated the Hebrew text into Greek for the LXX translated the first three words of Genesis 1:1 as "In the beginning God created".Then he disagreed with the 2300 year old translation because he/she did not think they knew as much about the original text as he/she did.Under (a) the statement "the first vowel in the first word" creates a problem as the Biblical Hebrew did not have vowels. Those were added by the Massoretts, a little over 1,000 years ago.The prefix beit ב means in, on by, with. SourceThe statemet "indicates that the word is in the construct" is wrong as the beit is not a vowel.I have asked in another place but will repeat it again.What is the construct state in Biblical Hebrew?Since you have commented on another matter since that question was posted I assume you are not prepared to answer the question.In Biblical Hebrew the construct state occurs when two nouns are side by side in a sentence. The first noun is in the construct state and the second noun is in the absolute state. The noun in the absolute state is the one of posession.The only way you could have a noun in construct state in Genesis 1:1 is if the verb bara ברא
did not follow בראשית be(reshith), or one of the eth's missing between the other three nouns in the text.In Genesis 1:1 you have one verb in the Qal perfect ^3ps A Qal perfect verb is completed action.The first noun tells us when the action was completed. In the beginning.The second noun which is the subject of the verb tells us who completed that action.The other two nouns tells us the result of the action.Thus you have a declarative sentence of completed action.The heaven and the earth existed.You then quote Rashi:

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since you have no instance of the form reshith in Scripture which is not in construct to the word following it, as for example 'In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim' (bereshith mamlekheth yehoyaqim, Jer. 27.1).... So here, too, you must say [that the phrase] bereshith bara elokim, etc., is equivalent to 'In the beginning of (God's) '(bereshith bero).

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Rashi presents Jer. 27:1 as a place reshith is in the construct state. You have בראשית re'shiyth with the beit prefix meaning in the beginning (the is absorbed into the beit) followed by ממלכת mamlakah a femine noun meaning kingdom, dominion, reign, sovereignty.Thus you have a true construct state.Rashi also gives Genesis 10:10, Deuteronomy 18:4, as examples of the construct state an both are true as they are the same construct state as Jeremiah 27:1.He also gives SourceIn Hosea 1:2 we have דבר–יהןהThis construction has the verb dabar with the noun tĕchillah
connected to it in the absolute state making the noun the owner of the verb and the proper translation would be "At or in the beginning of God speaking". Notice that the yod is a prefix on the noun.This would be the construction necessary for Genesis 1:1 to be translated 'In the beginning of God creating'. No, verse 1 is a complete declarative sentence of completed action.You then quote Rashi again:

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(b) When the story of creation is resumed later, in 2.4, it is, again, the temporal ("When") construction that is employed: "When the LORD God made earth and heaven" (beyom asoth HASHEM elokim eretz we-shamayim); and note how there also, as in 1.2, verses 5 and 6 constitute a circumstantial clause, with verse 7 being the fulfillment of verse 4 ("When the LORD God made heaven and earth ... the LORD God formed man from the dust of the earth...").

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I don't know where Rashi gets ("When") from in Genesis 2:4. My word for word translation reads: "These history the heaven and the earth created in the day He made LORD God earth and heaven."If we ever get past Genesis 1:1 we can take the Hebrew words for this verse and examine them.You then quote Rashi again:

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(c) The numerous ancient Near Eastern stories of creation nearly all begin with the "When" sentence structure, e.g., the Babylonian Enuma Elish:

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When above, the heavens had not been named,
(And) below, the earth had not been called by name.

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The Bible was not written by those who wrote those stories nor were they about those stories.The only one alive that knew about the beginning related that story to a chosen man who recorded it for us to read.So what and how does the Babylonian Enuma Elish have anything to do with how the Bible was written?You then return to verse 2 of chapter 1 assuming it is a continuation of Genesis 1:1.Verse 2 is not part of verse 1.Verse 1 is a complete declarative sentence of completed action.Verse 2 tells us the condition the earth was in at the evening of the first light period that had come to end with darkness.I found this little jewel Source

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The surface of the abyss.

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I.e., upon the waters that are upon the earth.

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This comes from Rashi's commentary.He apparantly believed the earth (land) was covered by water, which means the heaven and the earth existed prior to Genesis 1:2. The noun that preceeds the verb would be in construct state with the subject, if the Hebrews had used modern construction. That is because there has only ever been 1 day one (a day that was not preceeded by a light period or a dark period) which ended with the light portion which began the second day that followed the dark portion of day one . Genesis 1:5 Only if you ignore Biblical Hebrew grammar.I suppose you could apply modern Hebrew grammar and get it to say anything you want it to say. But I am just guessing as all I have to go on is your translation of Biblical Hebrew. I have never studied modern Hebrew, and don't intend too.Back to current message. The land mass was covered with water making earth uninhabitable which God did not create the earth in that condition. But we can get into that after we finish Genesis 1:1.God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

they did, but, if you note, they

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rendered Hebrew bereshith bara elokim mechanically, "In the beginning God created." There are several cogent reasons, each independent of the others, for rejecting the traditional rendering as incorrect, and for accepting the temporal ("When...") construction.

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er, no. because the mechanical (see that word above?) translation doesn't necessarily best suit the meaning. indeed! this gives you a good hint how jews a little over 1,000 years ago read it. i'm not going to dignify that one with a response. which one? since you just got done decrying the unreliable additions of vowels, here's an infinitive construct of bara.

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בְּיוֹם, בְּרֹא

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(genesis 5:1)

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gosh, sort of funny how it has all the same consonants. and how your concordance undoubtedly lists that verb as "qal/perfect". yet, even the source you probably cribbed from earlier will tell you this is an infinitive. of course, the author there obscures the fact that it's only the vowels that are different by transliterating the whole business into latin. i mean, who could confuse בְּרֹא and בָּרָא? clearly, only a fool! you might want to look up infinitive constructs. on the contrary, the ending of בראשית indicates that the next word has to be part of the construct. orlinsky. works with infinitives, too, as infinitives often function as nouns. read it again. more closely this time. the yud is not a prefix. it's the first letter in god's name, which always starts with a yud. and please stop typing nun sofit when you mean vav. i know it's all gibberish to you anyways, but you could seriously try to spell things in ways that are actually possible. orlinsky. because it's an infinitive construct, where the bet inflects the temporal sense. orlinsky. style. yes. and? i'm not sure what you think your point is here -- this is a relatively common idea. in fact, this earth would have existed before god created it, indistinct from the water and empty (you know, like the verse says), until god reveals it. gods creation is not ex-nihilo, but rather is the organization, demarcation, and declaration of existing components.this is obvious to see if you put two and two together, and realize that this is what rashi is describing as the initial state of the earth when god began to form it. err, no, if you pay attention to it. i assure you, orlinsky knows a good deal more about it than you do -- and i am just now seeing why he chose to render an infinitive. i suggest you look a bit harder, and do some more research, before you post again.and frankly, even if you ignore the grammar, and just look at how the verse functions, even rendered in your horribly mechanical way, it still describes the rest of the chapter. frankly, i'm not convinced you've studied biblical hebrew either. and no, you can't apply modern hebrew grammar. it doesn't make any sense in modern hebrew. the word order is all wrong, construct states are used (modern generally does not use them at all), etc. and even if it did make sense in modern hebrew, modern hebrew still has rules.

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אָרַח

Hi arach,Would you please give me a mechanical translation of the following. God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

no, i would not. i could not. it is nonsense. for starters, words can't have both a (consonantal) definite article and a prepositional prefix. is one of those elohim's supposed to be the subject? if so, which one? and if the other isn't, and is an object, why is it indefinite? will God make gods (future tense)? but clearly it can't be an object, as you have next i mean, at least you put a definite object with your direct object. but then, no vav? how exactly do you have two definite, direct objects, with no conjunction? you're really going to have to try better than broken first year hebrew to convince me that you actually know anything. my (first year) hebrew teacher would have failed me if i wrote that.also, have you looked up infinitive constructs yet?

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אָרַח

Hi arach,Well if you would not give me a MT of my trap would you give me a translation of the following. Coddle and old man. Yes, the definite article would be absorbed into the prefix. That was louzy copying and pasting along with real bad proof reading. So was leaving off the vav. Yes I dug it out but I don't know why. Moses did not know anything about the method we have decided he was writing the text in.I did proof read the text above I asked for you to translate and I think it is correct. I need your version of what it says. Thanks in advance.God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

no, that's even worse! not a word. but i think it's supposed to be בתחלה. note that only one of those letters is a chet. another is a taf, and another a hey. these letter are not interchangeable, but you seem to have some difficulty keeping them straight. as an english speaker, it's quite easy to add a vav to "god", but that sound is entirely taken care of by the holam next to the lamed. but since we aren't bothering to type with niqudot, we'll let that one go. (i've honestly never bothered to learn all the damned vowels. niqudot are such a pain, and almost nobody uses them in modern hebrew) hooray, a word spelled correctly! "make" or "made", depending. you probably mean past tense here. brother? oh, you mean את. carry on. "the skies" or perhaps "the semites". but you probably mean the first one. ואת the official newspaper of israel, haartez! ...and here's where it starts to go more than a little batty. only one of those happens to be a word, ללא "without". the rest could be, well, lots of stuff."היחה" might be החיה "resuscitate", or maybe you hit an extra letter and meant to type היה "was". hard to say. there's a few other possibilities, too, but those were the best candidates."טופם" might be טופס (usually spelled without the vav) but i'm pretty sure that means the other kind of form, the sort you'd fill out."ומבומל", well, i honestly have no idea. all of the words i can find that are spelled anything close to that are clearly not what you're obviously aiming for. proof-read harder. it really does help to spell things correctly. also, please learn the difference between ת, ח, and ה. and between ס and ם. at least you seem to have sorted out ו and ן, for the moment. presumptions about what moses did or did not know are completely irrelevant. we are simply dealing with the words on the page, and not beliefs about who wrote a particular text. if the text uses infinitive constructs -- and it does -- then the text uses infinitive constructs.and besides, whatever any hypothetical moses wrote, it would have been in paleo-hebrew, not biblical hebrew. the bible we have is in biblical hebrew. tell you what. why don't you just tell me what you're trying to say. you obviously can't seem to put together a clear sentence in hebrew, and so this particular discussion isn't leading us anywhere. all it's going to do is continue to affirm my belief that you're not telling the truth about six years of study in biblical hebrew. somewhere, in those six years, you should have learned to at least construct a sentence, and tell the difference between a chet, hey and taf.

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אָרַח

hi again ICANT.have you looked up infinitive constructs yet? care to try again at convincing me you've actually studied hebrew?Edited by arachnophilia, : No reason given.

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אָרַח

Hi arach, I don't have to convince you of anything and really don't have time to waste doing so.Yes I know what an infinitive construct is.But you seem to have a different idea of what constitutes an infinitive construct.So are you saying ברא with the literal transliteration bra is a infinitive construct?If so present your argumentation for it being an infinitive construct.God Bless,

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"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

i'm saying that the translation that the OP provides the notes on seems to be rendering it as one, yes. and that this is a somewhat sensible thing to do, considering that the ת suffix on בראשית indicates that it's in a construct with the following word. the text only makes sense, grammatically, if that verb is actually an infinitive.

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אָרַח