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  • From: "Ian Hutchesson" <mc2499 AT mclink.it>
  • To: "Biblical Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: TOHU in Isaiah
  • Date: Sat, 30 Mar 2002 22:25:44 +0100


>But this passage is not necessarily saying that God did not create "tohu"
>(and I do not have the original message, so I am not sure if Jason is
>correctly citing Liz). The NRSV offers a legitimate reading that does not
>require one to read the passage as denying that God created tohu, but rather
>than what he created was not intended to *remain* tohu.
>
>For thus says the LORD,
> who created the heavens
> (he is God!),
> who formed the earth and made it
> (he established it;
> he did not create it a chaos,
> he formed it to be inhabited!):
> I am the LORD, and there is no other.

Christian,

As I read the text it seems to me to preclude the creation
of tohu by God. l'-thw br'h, I would think, is rather
unequivocal. It says that he didn't create [the earth]
chaotic. There is no notion of "remain" in the text. (It
would make no sense to create it in a chaotic state if the
intention is to populate it.) The passage is referring to
the thw wbhw of Gen 1:2 and negating both as the scope of
creation.


Ian








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