Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT SIL.ORG]

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