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  • From: peter_kirk AT SIL.ORG
  • To: b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re[3]: Translations and Arian Bias
  • Date: Sun, 04 Apr 1999 22:35:08 -0500


Dear Dan-Ake,

I must accept that I cannot match your knowledge of patristic
theology. I think you are being rather hard on Athanasius, but then I
don't have the context at hand, and I would not want to defend all of
Athanasius' thinking.

The Hebrew root QNH is clearly controversial, but you in turn
surprised me by suggesting a stative sense "possess", as the
dictionaries I have all give fientive senses only e.g. "acquire",
"buy", "create". My NIV translates "brought forth" at Gen 4:1 and Prov
8:22, with footnoted alternatives in both cases (one source suggests
that other NIV editions differ). Holladay, following K-B, divided into
two roots, one meaning "acquire" and the other "create". But Cornelius
and Van Leeuwen, in VanGemeren, link the two meanings together through
the meaning "procreate": "Semantically, the range of qnh is similar to
that of "get" and "beget" in English (both can mean acquire and
procreate...). The metaphoric imagery of procreation can be used to
express the divine activity of creation... When used for divine
creation in the OT, the procreative sense of qnh has generally become
a dead metaphor. Yet in the crucial passage, Prov 8:22, where Yahweh
"creates" (qnh) Wisdom, the metaphor of creation remains active
through the use of xyl I (be in labor...) in vv.24-25 (cf. Deut
32:6,18; Ps 90:2)."

You wrote: "To create and to beget is in the Bible used as synonyms
(Psalm 90, Proverbs 8)". What exact references? The most
characteristic Hebrew word for "create", BR), is not used in either of
these chapters as far as I can tell. In Psalm 90:2 the language of
birth is used as a metaphor for creation. In Proverbs 8:22-31 there
seems to be a distinction between two processes, the coming into being
of Wisdom (QNH, NSK - another debatable root, XYL) and the (temporally
later) works of creation ( (SH is used in v.26, KWN hiphil in v.27).

I would submit that the two ideas "create" and "beget" were
distinguished as long ago as when Proverbs were written and remained
so up to the time of Athanasius. According to your description, the
Ante-Nicene Fathers (rather a disparate lot to lump together!) spoke
of the eternal generation or begetting of the Logos but not of him/it
being created; whereas surely they used the word "create" rather than
"beget" for material things. Have I got that right? That means that
they distinguished the two concepts. Your quotation from Athanasius
suggests that they also sometimes used the more generic word "make"
for both ideas; recognising that this was not entirely proper,
Athanasius wrote "but "He made" we use without question for "He
begat"."

Peter Kirk





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