Biblical Hebrew Forum

[mjoseph <mjoseph AT terminal.cz>]

Jason Carter wrote:

>I am currently engaged in a scholarly debate, and I am hard pressed to find 
>experts on Hebrew to either confirm or deny some assertions concerning the
>bible.
>
>Basically, the atheist position is that Genesis 2:19 contradicts
>the creation account of Genesis chapter one, because of its
>contruction with a WAW consecutive in Hebrew. 
>
>Ie. Gen. 2:19 states that animals were created directly after
>G-d realized that Adam needed a helper, which would contradict the account
>in Gen 1. that God created animals before Adam.
>
>Does such a contradiction truly exist?

Well, I'm not an expert in Hebrew, but maybe this will help.

Gen. 2:19 begins with VaYYiTSeR; the verb "YaTSaR" in the imperfect with 
a WAW consecutive.  Waltke and O'Connor ("Introduction to the Syntax of 
Biblical Hebrew", pp. 544-546) say that "It (imperfect with a WAW 
consecutive) shows in Hebrew meanings equivalent to those of the suffix 
(perfect) conjugation."  Earlier, on p. 490, they had already shown that 
the suffix conjugation can have a pluperfect meaning; later, on p. 552, 
they show that the imperfect with a WAW consecutive can also have a 
pluperfect meaning, giving as examples "The Lord *had said* (Hebrew: 
VaYeDaBBeR) to Moses" (Num. 1:47-49) and "The Lord *had said* (Hebrew: 
VaYYoMeR) to Moses" (Ex. 4:18-19).  Keil & Delitzsch say the same thing 
in more words: "The circumstance that in verse 19 the formation of the 
beasts and birds is connected with the creation of Adam by the imperfect 
with WAW consecutive constitutes no objection to the plan of creation 
given in chapter 1.  The arrangement may be explained on the supposition, 
that the writer, who was about to describe the relation of man to the 
beasts went back to their creation, in the simple method of the early 
Semitic historians, and placed this first instead of making it 
subordinate; so that our modern style of expressing the same thought 
would be simply this; 'God brought to Adam the beasts which He had 
formed'."  They buttress this with a long footnote referring to other 
instances of such a style (main point, followed by chronologically 
earlier subordinate point, expressed in English by a pluperfect) in 1 
Kings 7:13 (where Solomon sends for Huram to build the temple, though the 
temple had already been described in chapter 6), and in Judges 2:6 (where 
the Hebrew imperfect with WAW consecutive VaYeSHaLLaC is translated by 
the pluperfect "had sent" in the NIV), referring to the events that had 
already been described in the first chapter.

So, Gen. 2:19 can be read as a pluperfect; of course, it can also be read 
as a simple past tense, carrying along the narrative, and creating a 
contradiction.  Leupold (p. 130) makes an amusing comment here: "It would 
not, in our estimation, be wrong to translate *yatsar* as a pluperfect in 
this instance. The insistence of the critics upon a plain past is partly 
the result of the attempt to make chapters one and two clash at as many 
points as possible."

Since the grammar permits either translation, and since both translations 
read smoothly in context, a lot will depend on what presuppositions one 
brings to the text.  Someone who reads the Bible as revelation from God 
will translate VaYYiTSeR as a pluperfect, resulting in no contradiction.  
Someone who sees the Bible as the record of the religious experiences of 
certain Semitic peoples, pieced together in the 5th century BC by a 
redactor, will tend to translate VaYYiTSeR as a simple past, resulting in 
a contradiction.  And neither side will ever convince the other side that 
they are wrong; especially since the two groups take a different view as 
to the relationship between chapters one and two.  By the way, there are 
further arguments on both sides, but I've only dealt with the question of 
the imperfect with WAW consecutive in this post.

In any case, it is wrong to say that there has to be a contradiction here.

Mark Joseph

PS: I may not have used "standard" transliteration of Hebrew in this 
post; if somone would be so kind as to post what I should be using, I'll 
try to comply.