Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

Liz,
This was actually me, not Peter.

> I think you had a but, a but implies "at the time when".
> I think you said "in the beginning God created heaven and earth,
> but the earth was ...." The but implies, at the time when God began
> to creat the earth was ...and water was ....
> So even this translation implies that earth and water existed perhaps as
> chaos

I'm not sure how you got this, but there is no such implication in
my translation.  As you said, I translate it "In the beginning God
created the heavens and the earth, but the earth was formless and
void etc."  I don't see how this could possibly imply that the earth
and water existed before the creative act; it plainly says that they
were created right then, but the earth was not yet "complete" in the
form that we see it today.  Nor does the presence of "waters"
cause any problem, because we already know there was a "deep"
over the earth, which is to say that the earth was covered with
water in its first "formless and void" state.  I don't understand why
this is such a problem...

> (but I don't picture it that way, I picture it as the text says, the earth
> dark and
> completely covered with water) prior to God's creative activity.

Exactly.  And that's precisely what my translation is intended to
convey.  The "but" doesn't carry any of the implications you
suggest.  At least it's not meant to.

Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"Éist le glór Dé."