Hi arach,
arachnophilia writes:
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.
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:
arcahnophilia writes:
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)
This comment followed this quote.
quote:
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...)."
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.
Source
The 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
בראdid 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:
quote:
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).
Rashi presents Jer. 27:1 as a place reshith is in the construct state.
Jeremiah writes:
27:1 In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah came this word unto Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
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
Hosea 1:2, tehillat dibber [yahweh] behosheah, which is as much to say, "At the beginning of God's speaking through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea:
Source
In Hosea 1:2 we have
דבר–יהןה
This 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'.
arachnophilia writes:
so verse 1 is really part of a larger sentance,
No, verse 1 is a complete declarative sentence of completed action.
You then quote Rashi again:
quote:
(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...").
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:
quote:
(c) The numerous ancient Near Eastern stories of creation nearly all begin with the "When" sentence structure, e.g., the Babylonian Enuma Elish:
When above, the heavens had not been named,
(And) below, the earth had not been called by name.
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
quote:
The surface of the abyss.
I.e., upon the waters that are upon the earth.
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.
arachnophilia writes:
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:
The noun that preceeds the verb would be in construct state with the subject, if the Hebrews had used modern construction.
arachnophilia writes:
apparently, it's quite standard biblical hebrew practice. ironically, the modern word for "sunday" is yom raishon and not yom achad.
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
arachnophilia writes:
but the point here should be apallingly obvious by now. the first verse serves as introduction to the seven days of creation.
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.
arachnophilia writes:
further, there is no evidence of anything getting "messed up"
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,
"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."
™ Version 4.2
