Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: bereshit

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Ian Hutchesson" <mc2499 AT mclink.it>
  • To: "Biblical Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: bereshit
  • Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 21:56:36 +0100


>You looked at bereshit in isolation first, and I didn't contest your
>results.

This is something I needed to hear, if it means
that you grant that the relationship I proposed
between br'$yt and the following clause is an
acceptable interpretation -- at least before
looking at a wider context.

Another thing which I have put forward a number
of times is that the first act of creation in
the six days is the creation of light which
started the first day, as anything created
before would nullify the six days of creation
with the seventh of rest. Should I take your not
contesting this as tacit acceptance?

>We then both started looking at the context, which is quite
>proper. Only later did you start complaining about me looking at the
>context. Could it be that you realised that I understood it better than
>you?

Grin. (Or groan!)

I have no doubt that you do, but that was
not the reason: I needed something tangible
about the reasonability of the reading of
Gen 1:1 I put to you.

You merely pass over all the more complex
subordinate clauses, because you require
that the complex subordinate clause in this
case must be governed by a time phrase of
the type b-noun, when you have already
argued that the corpus is not necessarily
very wide. When I pointed out that ky
subordinates complex clauses, for some
reason you thought that irrelevant, but
what interests us is the subordination of
complex clause structures, so it is still
relevant in my eyes and I'm at loss to
understand why you exclude it.

However, I did note that bywm governed many
subordinate clauses in Ecc 12:3, so
complexity of the subordination is not a
problem either, so while you could point to
another translation of Num 7:1, what about
Ecc 12:3?

>If you can demonstrate that construct + sequence of clauses is possible
>by looking at other time nouns, I can equally demonstrate that bereshit
>can be an absolute by looking at other time nouns. As you pointed out,
>BARISHONA is common as "first" in an absolute sense.
>BAYYOM alone is actually rare but is found at Judges 13:10,

And this is an anaphoric reference, of which I talked
about in a previous post, indicating a qualification
already implied. It goes back to the day when the
angel visited her, when her husband wasn't present.
(There is no possibility of an anaphora at the
beginning of a book.)

>but BEYOM AXER "on another
>day" is common, and so are phrases like BAYYOM HAXAMISHI and BAYYOM
>HAHU' - these are all absolute nouns.

These are qualified, not by a clause, but by 'xr or
h-xmy$y.

>Similarly with SHANA "year" and
>XODESH "month". A lot more examples than you can1 find, I'm sure.

Perhaps I wasn't clear at the start, but I was
talking about unqualified time phrases as you
would in Gen 1:1, not simply the fact that you
can find time phrases in the absolute.

Rashi's argument was that the term br'$yt needed
qualification and I have shown that these time
phrases are qualified either with a subordinate
clause, as is most of the examples with bywm, or
genitives, or adjectives, or anaphora. None of
these categories applies to your interpretation
of br'$yt in Gen 1:1. There can be no ellipsis
for the same reason.

>Both constructions are common (one more than the other) with time nouns
>other than RESHIT. Neither is found with RESHIT except in Gen 1:1. The
>decision between the two needs to be taken on other grounds.

When you accept that all examples of br'$yt are
qualified, and that the majority of exemplars of
bywm, an analogous structure, govern subordinate
clauses and the rest are qualified in other ways,
as is the case with l`t, at the time,


Ian






Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page