Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk" <Peter_Kirk AT sil.org>]

I accept "In a beginning God..." as a valid alternative to "In the beginning
of God...". I don't accept "with" as B- does not mean "with", and the
grounds you give for preferring it (that "with a beginning" is better
English than "in a beginning") as both are bad English and neither are what
the Hebrew means. So I don't think there is any support for your last
question.

Remember that I said that this was ridicuously over-literal, so I am not
going to be drawn into discussing which of two alternatives is marginally
less ridiculous. And I certainly was not looking for things like
alliteration in such a pseudo-translation.

Peter Kirk

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Ross" <wross AT farmerstel.com>
To: "Biblical Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2000 2:35 AM
Subject: RE: Gen 1:1 "When God began to create"?


> <Peter>
> ...A ridiculously over-literal translation of 1:1-2 could go something
like:
>
> In the beginning of God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth
> was/became formless and void...
>
> <Bill>
> My understanding of a couple of details would be inclined to modify your
> gloss thus...
>
> "With/In a beginning, God created the heavens and the earth; and the earth
> was/became unformed and unfilled..."
>
> I lean toward "with" and because "beginning" has no definite article, so
it
> flows better: "with a begininng" instead of "in a beginning".
>
> I like the way "unformed/unfilled" capture the alliteration of the
original.
>
> I believe the vowel points were added much later, so disregarding them,
the
> "of" difficulty disappears. Am I correct on this?
>
> With a reading of "with a beginning", could we have textual support for a
> "renewal" of the heavens and Earth occuring?
>
> "God started with raw materials when He created the heavens and the earth,
> and the Earth was formless and void"
>
> Just asking...
>
> Bill Ross
>
>
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to b-hebrew as: Peter_Kirk AT sil.org
> To unsubscribe, forward this message to
$subst('Email.Unsub')
> To subscribe, send an email to join-b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu.
>