basic reading of genesis 1:1

Hi arach,This is what I was saying was a typo. The Genesis 1:1 should have been 5:1.They stated that Genesis 1:1 was Qal. Pf.. Which with their definition create would be translated created as perfect is completed action. But that is the only place they used cstr. in all their writings, for 'bara, which covered over half a page. Why are you applying this rule: Sourceto Biblical Hebrew?In Biblical Hebrew the ב placed on a noun means in, on, with, by, etc.It is not the start of a temporal prepositional phrase. בראשית translates 'in the beginning' not, 'when the beginning'. ביום translates 'in the day', 'not when the day'. בהבראם the beit begins a temporal clause placing ברא in the infinitive construct.This clause would begin with when the object (in this case the Heavens and the Earth) were created by the subject of the verb.The first part of the verse makes a declaration.
The second part of the verse reverses the order of the subjects as the details given in the following verses are concerning the Earth only. No details were given concerning the Heavens (universe).Genesis 17:24 בהמלוThe beit puts the verb in the temporal infinitive construct and is translated, 'when he was circumcised'.Genesis 19:17 כהוציאםThe kaf puts the verb in the temporal infinitive construct and is translated, 'when they had brought them forth'.These Bible examples is the construction required for a temporal infinitive construct as presented in my text books.Now if you have support where a prefix on a noun in Biblical Hebrew puts the following verb in the infinitive construct present it. That is not anywhere near to what I do. I showed it to my wife and got her opinion. She is still laughing.But your applying present day English rules to ancient Biblical Hebrew is just as laughable.Are you sure you are not letting your worldview guide your choosing of rules to follow rather than examples presented from the actual text.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 was only pointing out that they did not call 'bara in Genesis 5:1 and Infinitive construct.They did call it an infinitive.They did present an example they did call a construct.Now what they considered an infinitive compared to what you consider an infinitive is over a hundred years removed from each other.I do not know what they thought an infinitive construct was.I do know what my Biblical Hebrew text books say an infinitive construct is.I also know what they say a temporal infinitive construct is.Which is when a verb has a preposition beit or Kaf it is a temporal clause.I have given many examples of such in the Bible and there are many more that have been translated as temporal clauses.Here is Rashi's commentary on Genesis 5:1. Source You have to scroll down to chapter 5.This is the translation given in the Bereishis with Rashi's commentary. Source You have to scroll down to chapter 5.Neither Rashi or the Bereishis treated Genesis 5:1 as a temporal infinitive construct or any other kind of infinitive construct.While I am here let me comment on Rashi's commentary on Genesis 1:1. SourceRashi bases his interpertation and translation on the statement: ראשית
"never appears in Scripture except when it is annexed to the following word".Then he gives examples of ראשית being followed by a noun which places ראשית in the noun construct.This is proper noun construct.There are places where ראשית follows another noun and is in the absolute state.There is no example of ראשית being placed in the construct by a Qal. Pf. verb.If Rashi believed the beit on ראשית placed it in the construct why did he not translate ביום in Genesis 5:1 in the temporal?Since Rashi did not translate Genesis 5:1 as a temporal he did not believe the beit put יום in the infinitive construct. It stands to reason that he was using it in Genesis 1:1 to support his worldview that water came first.His reasoning is wrong and his conclusion is wrong and is not supported by Biblical Hebrew grammer.Just as your reasoning is wrong as it is influenced by your worldview.As far as I am concerned it makes no difference when the Universe began to exist. I have met God and know He has protected me and provided my needs for the past 71+years.I don't care whether the Universe and the Earth was created 6,000, 10,000, or 13.5 billion or an eternity of years in the past.I know God created everything from my personal experience with Him.I am just trying to figure out how He did it.Is the standard BBT correct? Well there are too many unanswered questions and problems with the BBT.Is the YEC version correct? There are too many scientific problems.Is the day age or gap theory's correct? Too many problems with the wording in Genesis chapters 1 and 2.Is my verson correct? I have no idea.I do know if my version is correct and God created the Universe as the BBT puts forth it answers all the question science can't.I do know if my version is correct and God created the Universe as Genesis chapters 1 and 2 states it answers all the questions religion can't.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."

perhaps those are the only usages that have to be constructs. a bet prefix is a preposition. you don't necessarily have phrases in hebrew, as you can convey the same idea as an english two-word phrase in one word of hebrew, by including the prefix. however, if that word starts a construct chain, then yes, "phrase" is appropriate. i suggest you actually look at some idiomatic translations. they are not randomly inserting "when" into phrases hat indicate a temporal sense. rather, they are replacing the mechanical qualities with a fluid english rendering that retains the sense of the verse. so, ביום becomes "when", and בראשית becomes "when ___ began". yes, in genesis 2:4, the grammatical context necessitates such a preposition. however, in genesis 1:1 (and 5:1), that is already taken care of by the first word in the construct chain. as genesis 2:4 is not the beginning of a subordinate clause, and has no previous word with a prepositional prefix attached to it, it needs the preposition. genesis 1:1 and 5:1 do not, and indeed would be nonsensical if they had one. further, it has an pronominal suffix that indicates the object. genesis 1:1 and 5:1 do not need this (and indeed would be nonsensical if they had it) as there the construct is followed is followed by an absolute: god.now, you might remember that i've stated this previously. in fact, one of the places it can easily be found is in Message 148, the very message you replied to, where i write:

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no, ICANT. you really, actually have to look at the verse and read it. you can't just pull one specific usage out of it's grammatical context, and expect it to apply universally. so, let's look at the genesis 2:4, shall we?

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אֵלֶּה תוֹלְדוֹת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְהָאָרֶץ, בְּהִבָּרְאָם

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this is the first half of the verse. notice that this is not taking the place of a subordinate clause. the infinitive construct has two peculiarities:

1. it has a prepositional prefix, ב, attached to it, that indicates the temporal sense. as we've seen repeatedly in genesis 5:1, this is not not needed when the temporal sense is handled by something else, such as עד, ביום, or even בראשית
2. it has a pronominal suffix, ם, attached to it, that means "their". as detailed in Message 95, and Message 126 and onward, this is acting as the absolute. it is not needed in genesis 1:1, because the absolute there is not a pronoun, but אלהים

further, as i explained in Message 94, genesis 2:4 is written in flopped parallel. here is the other half of the verse:

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בְּיוֹם, עֲשׂוֹת יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים--אֶרֶץ וְשָׁמָיִם

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note the temporal-infinitive construct chain, being used as a subordinate clause. if it works for one half, it should work for the other.

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in fact, not only is this the message that you replied to, but it's the specific snippet that prompted this response. this sort of behaviour is getting tiresome, but i promise that i will just keep referring you back to the message you pretended to address by blindly asserting the very thing the argument was against as a response to the argument. as you will see above, i have split the verse cleanly in two. the construct in question occurs at the end of the first half of the verse. the next half begins with, בְּיוֹם, עֲשׂוֹת, preposition-construct-infinitive. again, as i noted in Message 148. you do realize, of course, that it's possible that a textbook written over 100 years ago is a little bit out date? in any case, two of your sources have listed genesis 5:1 as an infinitive construct. the source i linked you to in Message 49 includes many examples of infinitive constructs without the need for a prefix. it lists a few where the preposition is a separate word (maqef optional! see page 603 for two examples using ad, one with a maqef and one without) the prefix is not needed. period. the bet preposition only relays the temporal sense. a separate word that also relays a temporal sense (or as a bet prefix) is quite sufficient to relay a temporal sense of the verb. you have to look at the grammatical context. yes, ICANT. it is precisely what you're doing. you just have a bit more sensitivity to the different forms and tenses. but you're not reading something, or looking at grammatical context. that is not what i'm doing. i'm trying to explain to you how to read with the assumption that you understand english grammar. perhaps this is a faulty assumption. i have suggested that you try your approach with english -- find a big lexicon, pour over it for each and every form of every word in a sentence, and see what kind of nonsense you can generate. i suggest this not because english and hebrew have anything particularly in common, but because i think it will elucidate the different between reading, and consulting textbooks, dictionaries, lexicons, etc. yes. my western, english-speaking worldview. that includes the writings of rashi. who lived in the west, and wrote in english, obviously.

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אָרַח

good! now, is it being used as an absolute, or a construct? for an inappropriate usage. remember how i said you were doing precisely what the time-travellin'-eddy's were doing? you're ignoring appropriate usages, and grammatical context. those are verbs, turned into nouns, turned into adjectives. we're not look for adjectives. indeed. and the textbook i linked above, repeatedly, contains a multitude of examples, many of which are essentially identical to genesis 5:1 and 1:1. yes. here's an example.

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בְּרֵאשִׁית, מַמְלְכוּת יְהוֹיָקִים בֶּן-יֹאשִׁיָּהוּ--מֶלֶךְ יְהוּדָה

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-- Jeremiah 26:1

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ready for the fun part? no? the noun is : ממלכותbut let's play a game. it's called, "find the root word". let's pretend for a second that: מis a prefix (as it often is) and, ותis a suffix (as it often is). what are we left with? מלךindeed, this is the root word. it also happens to be a verb. good question. perhaps it has something to do with the fact that rashi wasn't so much a translator as a rabbi and commentary author. and he wasn't perfect. as you'll note, in Message 1, orlinsky applies the rule uniformly. except that, you know, he basically says the opposite.

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אָרַח

that is, except to say that worldviews plays no part in my analysis. this is not a worldview. it is what the bible plainly states. even if you render the first verse as an independent clause, clearly the "heaven and earth" it's talking about the creations it describes later in the chapter, and not some mystical initial creation the authors simply didn't feel needed any more explanation. and the very first thing mentioned after the introduction is water. that's really too funny. i bet your hebrew professor is rolling in his grave, what with you thinking you know more about biblical hebrew than rashi, when you can't even spell. uh, no. you might want to try that again. if there is anyone on this board that you can accuse of reading their own particular worldview into the bible, it certainly ain't me, as i have absolutely zero interest in making it match my worldview. i care about what it says, and not how i can justify those statements against something external.and this is probably the prime example. my worldview is informed by a few years of study in the sciences, including biology, geology, and paleontology. i happen to know that the planet is roughly 4.5 billion years old. i thoroughly understand and accept the theory of evolution, and the geologic timescale.yet you might notice that i am actually defending a young earth creationist position when it comes to the creation stories of genesis. and i will defend them textually -- genesis 1 is clearly the etiology of the week, and must be literal in its timescale. that is, 6 days, approximately 6K years ago.so, you might want to rethink the claim that my worldview is affecting my reading of the text, as the two are completely opposite. in fact, as i have stated many times in these debates over the years, i really couldn't care whether the text is accurate, and having to defend its supposed accuracy is compromising what the text says -- it is using your worldview to inform (or pervert) your reading of the text.you will likely find a similar discussion if you follow the OP back to it's originating thread. the proposed gap "theory" is an idea invented as one way to reconcile an old earth and the recent creation story. as i've stated, i have zero interest in doing this. i'm only interested in what the text says. if the position were supportable from the text, i would be okay with it. yes, fair enough. that said, let's discuss the text and what it says, shall we? discussion of how the creation story fits into reality is really quite off-topic in this thread, as it's only about what the text says and how to read it. not how to interpret in the context of modern science.

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אָרַח

Hi arach, My eyes must be worse than I thought I can't find a temporal infinitive construct on page 603. Could you point one out?Or just point out one of those you want to discuss.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."

yes. your memory is worse than you think, too. in Message 73, i wrote,

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ICANT writes:

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Do you have an example of such construct form?

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i do. i suggest actually looking at the "bare link" i gave you above. so, down on page 603, there's this:

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"The most important use of the infinitive construct," as Ernst Jenni notes, "is its use after prepositions in place of a subordinate clause (with conjunction and finite verb)."

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does that sound familiar? it should. so let's look at the examples that follow it.

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עַד-בּוֹא אֲדֹנָיו, אֶל-בֵּיתוֹ

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-- Genesis 39:16

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note several things:

1. your concordance actually lists this one as an infinitive.
2. it takes the same exact vowels as the root.
3. it has no prefix.
4. it is directly preceeded by a preposition that signifies a temporal relationship.
5. it follows the same exact structure as genesis 1:1, preposition, infinitive construct, subject, direct object.

happy? no, probably not.

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(link added to source citation) you then spent the next several posts debating the little dash. the example directly below it, of course, does not include the maqef:

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עַד אֲשֶׁר-אָבֹא אֶל-אֲדֹנִי

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-- Genesis 33:14

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אָרַח

As your Hebrew textbook should tell you, Hebrew has two (and only two) infinitives: the infinitive absolute and the infinitive construct. The infinitive construct is the more common of the two. Like the construct form of a noun, the infinitive construct tends to be a shorter form, with vowels reduced to short vowels and shewas, and with explicit mater lectionis reduced to vowel markings.So which type of infinitive is ברא in Gen 5:1? Is it an infinitive construct or an infinitive absolute? Based on the above information and the forms shown in your Hebrew textbook, you should be able to see for yourself that it's clearly an infinitive construct.Why did BDB just call this an Inf.? Why didn't they identify whether this was an infinitive construct or an infinitive absolute? Perhaps they felt that Gen 5:1 was the only biblical occurrence of any infinitive of ברא in the Qal, and they felt that further description was unnecessary?

Hi kbertsche, I don't believe that it is one.The only evidence given for it being one is the Masorete vowel markings that are only 1,000 years old.It was not translated in the LXX as an infinitive const.
It was not translated in the Bereishis/w Rashi Commentary as an infinitive const.
Rashi did not translate it as an infinitive const.Why should I? Or they could have not known infinitives and construct and absolutes like they are taught today.I am quite sure Moses did not know what an infinitive was as they used prefixes and suffixes to make different words out of the simple words.We are the ones complicating the Ancient Hebrew with our undestanding of English, and applying our rules to a 3500 year old language.But they did list a cstr. and abs.. In Message 147 I said: God Bless,Edited by ICANT, : spelling

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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, In the first example you have 2 verbs with prepositions attached with a maqqef used in place of a subordinate clause. The two infinitive constructs are separated with a noun.There is no temporal infinitive construct in this example.In the second example you have a preposition 'until' then you have the preposition 'which' attached by a maqqef on a verb putting it in the infinitive const used in place of a subordinate clause., then you have the prefix 'to' on a noun with a maqqef.You have no temporal infinitive construct in this example.If you will go to page 607 you will find the first example of a temporal infinitive construct with the ל .They then mention the ב and the כ.My text book gives the lamed as the purpose or result clause.
It gives the beit as a general temporal meaning, and the kaf as an immediately preceeding event.In Message 142 I gave several temporal infinitive constructs. This was a message you failed to respond to.These are temporal infinitive constructs and are translated as such with 'when'.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, Was ממלכות when used a noun or a verb?Since it was a noun what is your point.The Ancient Hebrew language was only a few words which were made into many words by adding prefixes and suffixes. The problem is that none you presented are a temporal infinitive construct. Where?It wasn't in his commentary where he said: SourceHe translated the beit as 'on'.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."

your source says it is. no, ICANT. the rules of biblical hebrew are derived from the way the language is used in the bible. not vice versa.

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אָרַח

the first example only has one verb, בּוֹא (coming). it has two nouns, אֲדֹנָיו (his master) and בֵּיתוֹ (his house), and two prepositions, עַד (until) and אֶל (to). it reads, "until his master's coming to his house" or "until his master came home". that's correct. those are very specific kind of construction -- here, the temporal sense is relayed by the preposition, as i have said repeatedly above. not by the prefix. the important point is that the form directly matches what we see in genesis 1:1 (and 5:1), a preposition signifying temporal relationships, an infinitive construct, and an absolute noun.

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אָרַח

perhaps you should look a bit harder at Message 154. the root word is a verb, and it has been turned into a noun by means prefix/suffix modification. it's about one step removed from being an infinitive, which is a verb and is frequently modified by a prefix and/or suffix. uh. no. i hinted at this once above, in Message 154, and in Message 153.rashi did not write in english. he did not translate anything (except some difficult words of the talmud, and into french). he provided commentary. here is rashi's commentary on that portion of the verse.

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ביום ברא וגו':
מגיד שביום שנברא הוליד:

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you might notice two things: it's in hebrew, and he happens to use the same phrase as in the bible. well, not quite the same. the bit you likely didn't notice is that he's using a shin prefix on both ביום and ברא. he's mechanically placing the two in a construct.to summarize,

1. you are reading a translation
2. you are trying to glean translation interpretation from that translation
3. your translation is lacking
4. and you are only reading the shortcomings of your translation, not actual translation advice

your translated commentary largely repeats what the bible says -- so what's the purpose of this particular comment, exactly? on the other hand, rashi's actual commentary goes to a little more trouble spell out this particular ambiguity.Edited by arachnophilia, : No reason given.

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אָרַח

So you disagree with BDB, who said that it WAS an Inf. I don't agree. I don't have ready access to the actual LXX, but the English translation of the LXX given at CCEL DOES translate it as an infinitive construct. Can you please provide evidence for your claim? I'm not sure about this. One online Bereishis seems to translate it as an independent clause, so may indeed view ברא as a finite verb here. But the JPS Tanakh translates it as an infinitive construct, and they generally follow Rashi.But perhaps there is some confusion as to how this affects the translation of Gen 5:1? Let's review:If ברא in Gen 5:1 is an infinitive construct, then Gen 5:1b would be translated "in the day of the creating of God, man/Adam" which is smoothed up as "in the day that God created man/Adam" or "when God created man/Adam." Since the verb is an infinitive contruct, it acts as a noun and there is no finite verb in the clause. This forces the clause to be a dependent clause. In this case, it is a temporal, dependent clause; the temporal nature is indicated by the word "day."If ברא in Gen 5:1 is a finite verb, as you have claimed, then Gen 5:1b would be translated "in a day God created man/Adam." The clause is forced to be an independent clause.This is how to tell whether the translators view ברא in Gen 5:1 as an infinitive construct or a finite verb: do they render it as a dependent clause or an independent clause?I can find no English translation which sees ברא in Gen 5:1 as a finite verb and render the clause as an independent clause. But the following see ברא in Gen 5:1 as an infinitive construct and render the clause as a dependent clause:
ASV, BBE, Douay, Darby, ESV, Geneva, Gods Word, Holman, JPS Tanakh, KJV, Message, NASB, NET, NIV, NKJV, NRSV, Webster, Young's Literal.