Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

>> 1  At the beginning of God's creating of the heavens and the earth,

Lewis:
>This reflects the well-known grammatical comment by the 
>traditional Jewish commentator Rashi.  To me, a definite 
>improvement over "In the beginning God created..."

Yes, it makes what follows more understandable -- the state of the world at
the time when creation was begun (and avoids some of the wilder theorizing
as to what happened between the "first stage" of creation and what happened
on the "first day").

>> 2  when the earth was wild and waste,

Though poetic, doesn't the "waste" take away from the meaning here? The
wildness gives cause for the events of the first three days: order is placed
over the chaos, while the following three days populates the emptiness.
Waste doesn't seem to be as apt as the AV "void" or "emptiness", does it?

>> darkness over the face of the Ocean,
>> rushing-spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters--

>> 3  God said: Let there be light!  And there was light.
>> 4  God saw the light: that it was good.
>> God separated the light from the darkness.
>> 5  God called the light: Day! and the darkness he called: Night!
>> There was setting, there was dawning: one day.

Lewis wrote:

>Eliminating all the "ands" is an improvement; but I'm 
>curious to know why he didn't stick with evening and 
>morning.

But doesn't `ereb imply the arrival of darkness, and boqer basically the
start of the day? This was certainly done for clarity, with Gen 1 working
with a day that finished at dawn: God created during the day, then the night
came followed by the close of the day span, the coming of morning -- one
day. Each day terminates with dawn (unlike later tradition).


Ian
 
>> 6  God said:
>> Let there be a dome amid the waters,
>> and let it separate waters from waters!
>> 7  God made the dome
>> and separated the waters that were below the dome from the waters that
>> were above the dome. It was so. 8  God called the dome: Heaven! There was
>> setting, there was dawning: second day.
>
>Similarly for "dome" for RaQiYa(


Ian Hutchesson
mc2499 AT mclink.it