Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Niels Peter Lemche <npl AT teol.ku.dk>]

> NPL wrote:
> >     [Niels Peter Lemche]  Well, Genesis 1 OK  [Niels Peter Lemche]  but
> > not a creation from nothing, that's Christian dictrine, not the content
> of
> > the Hebrew chapter one. The primary thing God creates is light,
> otherwise
> > creation of the basic elements is done by separating, havdil, light
> [Niels
> > Peter Lemche]  from darkness, the dry land from the ocean, the upper
> ocean
> > from the lower ocean.
> 
> After 1:1, sure this is the case.  However, Genesis 1 begins with a 
> bare statement that God created x and y.  The havdil statements 
> come after this initial creation, which is most logically assumed to 
> be ex nihilo since there's nothing mentioned or even implied out of 
> which these things are created.  It seems to me that Ken's 
> contrast between the Akkadian stories wherein the world is created 
> from divine seed etc. and the Genesis account wherein no pre-
> existing substance is mentioned, stands.
> 
> 
> Dave Washburn
> 
One of the basic parts of the training at universities is to tell people to
read a text in context. You cannot isolate one verse from it context and
claim that you can interpret it out of context. Gen 1:1 can be translated in
several different ways, e.g. because the first word does not say in the
beginning but as it stands in the Leningradiensis (and Aleppo for that
matter) 'at a beginning'. Of course you may argue that the vocalization is
wrong. Some takes it to be a superheading for the whole chapter, other as an
introductionary clause 'as God began to create...'. There are several
possibilities but consult Westermann, he has everything worth knowing (and
probably also everything not worth knowing).

The conclusion is that you have to interpret Gen 1:1 in light of what comes
next, and then it turns out that the primeval waters contain the dryt earth,
otherwise explain the creation of the dry earth that follows a few verses
later. 

The last thing to do if you want to know what is going on here is to
intriduce Christian doctrine to explain the content of this chapter.

NPL