Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Lee R. Martin" <lmartin AT vol.com>]

Dear Niels,
I have a question about chronology.
I seem to remember that you believe Genesis to be post-exilic. Is that 
correct?
Now you are arguing that Genesis borrowed from the Enuma Elish.  Am I 
understanding
you correctly?
If so, what evidence is there that the Enuma Elish was in circulation in 
Palestine in
post-exilic times?  Does a manuscript exist from that time?
I think it is more reasonable to deduce that Gen. 1 was written very near to 
the same
time period as the Enuma Elish.  Later redactions are possible, however.
Lee R. Martin

Niels Peter Lemche wrote:

> > 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
>
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--

Lee R. Martin
Pastor, Prospect Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee
Instructor in Hebrew and Old Testament
Church of God Theological Seminary
http://earth.vol.com/~lmartin/