Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

          ... 
> Read in context...check out Westermann...all I can say is "*yawn* 
> been there, done that, got the T-shirt."  It's grammatically possible 
> to translate the first word of Gen 1:1 some different ways, that's 
> true, but that fact doesn't make any one of them correct as 
> opposed to any of the others.  I don't argue that the vocalization is 
> "wrong" any more than I argue that British spelling of "colour" is 
> "wrong."  
        [Niels Peter Lemche]  

        I suggest that her queen's English is still the original, and the
American dialect a substratum, or as Oscar Wilde put it: We have a lot in
common with the Americans -- except the language! (Bernard Shaw said
something similar: Two nations divided by a common language)

> I do suggest, though, that Hebrew had enough latitude to 
> allow for definiteness without the article (see the relevant sections 
> in Gesenius, for a start).  To insist on translating it as "a beginning" 
> is more than a little slavish, and actually unnecessary.
> 
        [Niels Peter Lemche]  Right, it could be translated 'for a starter'
and in several other ways, of course.

> > 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. 
> 
> Uh-uh.  Sorry, but I have to claim "foul" here.  You say that "at a 
> beginning" is one possible translation, then proceed as if it's the 
> only correct one.
        [Niels Peter Lemche]  
        You did not answer my question or my request for an explanation. I
am speaking about dividing between elements and you are going back to Gen
1:1.

>   That has not been established, and in fact 
> grammatically it can't be established.  It can be posited, just as I 
> posited the other translation, but in reality the grammar doesn't 
> favor one over the other at all.  For that matter, the suggestion 
> (from Lee?  memory fails me this early in the morning) that it's in 
> construct with the following verb is also possible.  So that gives us 
> at least 3 possible translations,  all apparently on fairly equal 
> footing in terms of grammatical possibility.  From there the task is 
> for each of us to develop why we think ours is better than the 
> others.  I've given a brief summary from my end, and will be happy 
> to develop it further as discussion progresses.  I wasn't in on the 
> previous discussion of this passage, and actually didn't follow it 
> that closely, but I'll be happy to kick it around with you as long as 
> we can both keep a decent tone.
> 
> > 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.
> 
> Why?  Do you assume a priori that such a doctrine can't be right?  
> That strikes me as a tad prejudicial.  Semantically, we see a 
> perfectly sensible progression: initial creation (bfrf' v.1) followed by 
> forming said creation into various items (`f&fh in the rest of the 
> chapter).  That Christian doctrine is built out of centuries of 
> interaction with the text, and it seems to me that we throw all that 
> research out a priori to our detriment.  Someone in this thread 
> (forgive me again, names are escaping me at the moment) 
> indicated that some medieval Jewish scholars rejected creation ex 
> nihilo, and we need to look at those arguments as well.  I for one 
> would like to hear more about how those who went before us 
> reached their conclusions.  I can't just sit back and say "Oh, that's 
> a Christian doctrine, toss it out" or "That's just Rabbinical stuff, it's 
> not important."  I would hope you don't either.
> 
        [Niels Peter Lemche]  My response is simply that you don't find this
doctrine supported by the OT, except in the Church's traditional translation
of Gen 1:1. Otherwise, tell me where to look. Did I not refer to Miss Wisdom
in Proverbs? What about her? And what about the ME context. In spite of my
date for biblical (OT) literature, I never said it was not a Jewish
collection. It is sometimes very hard to Christianity to accept that.
Therefore the trick a hundred years ago of relating the composition of the
HB to ancient Israel, and to separate this ancient Israel and its scripture
from--what in those days in a derogatory way was called 'late Judaism' or
Spätjudentum. That is in essence what wellhausen supported by his claim that
the prophets predate the law. Mowinckel had it in this way, that it was a
pity that the Jews after having travelled around in the desert for forty
year should only end up in another desert called Talmud, but Mowinckel was
after all a Christian moralist (Oxford movement). I accordingly believe that
we should the OT/HB as a Jewish collection which stress my point made at
occasions that Christianity has to understand that is originated as a Jewish
sectarian movement. Christian doctrine is clearly superimposed on this
collection of literature at a later date. Of course this is not the way the
Church would prefer to read the Bible, but it never really liked the
Bible--a wolf in the sheep fold, as Robert Carroll styled it a few years
ago.

        Your turn

        NPL


        Finally, how can Christian doctrine live with any other translation
of Gen 1:1 than the approved one? So which translation is the exclusive one,
after all.

        NPL 

> Dave Washburn
>