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  • From: "Ian Hutchesson" <mc2499 AT mclink.it>
  • To: "Biblical Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: bereshit (translations) Paul
  • Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 22:41:55 +0100


>I see a strong disconnect between this post and the response of yesterday:
>
>"Let me invent a criterion: if I see convincing evidence that a time phrase
>such as br'$yt can stand at the beginning of a >book without any
>qualification, then I might consider it possible in the case of Gen 1:1,
>otherwise I will consider the notion simply unsupportable speculation."
>
>It has been pointed out that we have clear indications from 2000+ years ago
>that this is exactly how people much closer to the language chose to
>translate this unit.

The Vulgate was Jerome was it not? -- when creatio
ex nihilo was already being supported. That leaves
us with the LXX Genesis, when was it translated? Do
you accept the tail of Aristeas as truth? Accepting
it's evidence, we have one translation. Would you
really want to base a case on it? And why isn't the
verb epoihsen (poiew = create) an inceptive aorist?

Do you think it makes sense when analysing it that
v.1 can talk about a creation separate from that
found in the rest of the chapter? Not only does it
nullify the seven day structure imposed upon it,
but it also requires God to create confusion and
emptiness [thw wbhw].

Isa 45:18 h'rc .. l'-thw br'h [l$bt ycrh].

And what do you think of the parallelism with the
Babylonian creation account, Enuma Elish, in which
the creator god quells the waters (Tiamat, cognate
of tehom) with the aid of his wind, then proceeds
to cut Tiamat in half and make the waters above and
the waters below and create everything else from the
remains of Tiamat? The operative idea being that
the creation started upon the quelling of the waters
not before.

>It is also true that this is the way that it has been
>seen by Hebrew scholars of the past,

People like Rambam, but who before him?

>the same scholars and translators to whom you give so
>much credence when it comes to complex structures
>supposedly governed by BY)M in Ezekiel.

Whoa, Paul. I don't give so much credence to bywm in
Ezekiel. I found the resistence to the idea that if
one clause could in some way be attached to such a
time phrase, then given the recursive nature of
language more than one can also be attached, yet the
response was, oh, yeah, well, show me one; and if you
can't then you can't assume such a thing. I showed
that such a thing exists in Eze, and is accepted as
such in translation in various languages, to which
the response was, well, how could the modern English
translators have made such a mistake, to which I said
it was not a mistake, but a modern style, etc, etc.

>You initially asked for comments,
>you got some back, and you started defending your position like it was
>obviously the best choice,

This is not fair, Paul. I outlined more than one
choice in the matter. I was pressed to defend the
one I said I was inclined to, while the other
possibilities were simply ignored.

>even though no other scholar has ever tried to
>tie all that package together like you have.

I think you'll find it in rabbinical literature,
probably Genesis Rabbah.

>It still sounds to me like you
>are already convinced.

Well, I'm not.

>At the very least, you are not allowing yourself to
>be open to being guided by some whom have studied this language and seen its
>forms more than have you.

I am open to guidance, not to being led up the garden
path. The theory of languages I am well aware of. it
is the practice in the specific language I'm always
open about not having enough.

All I have seen is a basic lack of interest in the
main issue of the relationship between time phrases
and the clause which follows them.

>So I have very good reason to "couch" my "comment
>like that."

"You have convinced yourself..." is typical flame
material, and the content is simply wrong.


Ian






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