Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Ian,
> At 22.59 04/09/00 +0100, Peter Kirk wrote:
> >Ian, is it actually true that the oldest surviving text of Genesis 1:1 is
> >unpointed? Is there actually a surviving ancient unpointed manuscript of
> >this verse?
>
> To my knowledge the only DSS frag which has been found of the Gen1 creation
> account is of 1:18-21 in 1Q1. As it is part of that passage its conventions
> should reflect the passage as a whole. (One could of course propose that
> 1:1 was written later, but I wouldn't think that has much going for it --
> unless one could argue strongly for the heading interpretation of 1:1-2 for
> some reason.)

Actually, with the publication of DJD 12 we have 4QGen(g) which
includes Gen 1:1-11, 4QGen(b) which has Gen 1:1-25 as well as 4
other fragments that begin somewhere beyond verse 1.  The
transcriptions are on pages 58 and 33-34, respectively.

HTH,

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