Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

But there are no easy answers to this, not even to the last line. In
proverbs we have pre-existent wisdom who assisted God when he created the
world, very much like the logos of John 1:1. Also God's speech speech to Job
about his presence at the creation of the world. Lewis somehow got it right
in his The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrope, when he talks about the witch
as part of creation only knowing secrets that go back to creation, whereas
Ashlan as the creator knows secrets from before creation. 

This would be in line with the idea of the creator god creating the world
according to a plan, and not very different from Plato's talk about this
world as a mirror image of the real world.

Please note, I am not speaking about literary dependency but a communality
of thinking and believing.

NPL


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Peter Kirk [SMTP:peter_kirk AT sil.org]
> Sent: Tuesday, 18 January, 2000 04:36
> To:   Biblical Hebrew
> Subject:      Re[2]: SV: Gilgamesh and Genesis 1:1
> 
> I don't know if NPL was on this list at the time, but it's not many 
> months since we had an exhaustive discussion of the syntax of Genesis 
> 1:1. My conclusion was that Lee Martin's interpretation of this verse 
> cannot be syntactically correct, as this would leave it as a hanging 
> prepositional phrase linked to nothing else, for verse 2 (starting 
> with WAW) is clearly a new sentence. So I agree with NPL that the 
> literal meaning of BERE'SHIT is "at a beginning" with no construct 
> chain. But this cannot mean "one of many beginnings" but in this 
> context can only mean "in the beginning" in an absolute sense.
> 
> Peter Kirk
> 
> 
>