[b-hebrew] Genesis 2:6
Vadim Cherny
VadimCherny at mail.ru
Mon Sep 26 07:31:05 EDT 2005
> Well, I see two (well, in fact about 6 continuing into verse 9) successive
> clauses with WAYYIQTOL verbs, which is what I mean by a chain of
> WAYYIQTOLs. There is no evidence for a break in the chain in the middle of
> verse 7.
Only if we assume the correct orthography. But suppose the pause after
ha-adam (comma) is the break?
> Anyway, the object which was breathed in this middle clause is not dust,
> but the breath of life.
Only in VSO pattern. Imagine, however, "dust of the earth blew in his face,
[the face of] the living being. And the man existed for a living soul." That
is, he existed to irrigate.
I mean, Peter, I don't defend that translation 100%. But I don't believe
that narrators of the Torah were so stupid as to insert two contradictory
accounts of creation in two adjacent chapters. So I am inclinded to read
Gen2:7 not as creation, but as sending the man forward to a task, and that
task seems to be irrigation. With that exegetical need in mind, I try to
read Gen2:5-7.
Making a man ou of dust, breathing life into his nostrils, and putting two
contradiction creations nearby seems to make no less tortured reading.
Vadim Cherny
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