Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Genesis 3:15 and order of ideas

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Genesis 3:15 and order of ideas
  • Date: Wed, 22 Dec 2004 13:52:13 -0600

Dear Chris,

On 12/22/04 6:38 AM, "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com> wrote:
What makes me
sympathetic with Doug's idea is that a man obviously deposits seed.
Since ancients could see that, whether they understood anything about
an egg would not be so important. They would have seen that the man
planted seed in the woman. So the Hiphil of ZR( may have been a term
to indicate that this seed germinated.

Yet our ideas about what "ancients ... would have seen" is not a solid basis
on which to make philological claims.

HH: I did not make my argument on the basis of some questionable modern idea. I made on the basis of what their experience was. They would have seen with their eyes that male seed went into women.

Are there any _attested_ uses of the
verb ZR( taking a masculine subject and meaning "to impregnate"? I can't
find any in the Tanakh. Am I missing them?

HH: We're dealing with this topic because that information is not in the Tanakh. This fact does not mean that one cannot draw conclusions about basic realities of life and how they impinge on the use of a word. I did not say I was right. I said that I was sympathetic with Doug's idea, and in fact both the lexicons and even Moshe in his translation agrees with Doug.

HH: It is obvious that the wording in Lev 12:2 is similar to many places in the OT when it says that a woman became pregnant and gave birth. here is just a sample in the first book of the Bible:

Gen. 29:33 ¶ She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, "Because the LORD heard that I am not loved, he gave me this one too." So she named him Simeon.
Gen. 29:34 ¶ Again she conceived, and when she gave birth to a son she said, "Now at last my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons." So he was named Levi.
Gen. 29:35 ¶ She conceived again, and when she gave birth to a son she said, "This time I will praise the LORD." So she named him Judah. Then she stopped having children.
Gen. 30:7 ¶ Rachel's servant Bilhah conceived again and bore Jacob a second son.
Gen. 30:19 ¶ Leah conceived again and bore Jacob a sixth son.
Gen. 38:4 She conceived again and gave birth to a son and named him Onan.

HH: The ancients were fully aware of the role of male semen in conception:

Gen. 38:8 ¶ Then Judah said to Onan, "Lie with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to produce offspring for your brother."
Gen. 38:9 But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother.

HH: I've already argued that the Hiphil of ZR( in Lev 12:2 is a functional word looking forward to giving birth and probably functioning like HRH in the texts above. Otherwise, you have to assume that the text is speaking of simply producing eggs, which Peter says was an unknown reality until the nineteenth century. Or you have to imagine some other strange scenario. Why not just assume that the Hiphil in ZR( speaks of conception, which the ancients understood to involve male seed?

Yours,
Harold Holmyard






Chris
--
R. Christopher Heard
Assistant Professor of Religion
Armstrong Fellow in Religion
Pepperdine University
http://faculty.pepperdine.edu/cheard
http://www.iTanakh.org
http://www.semioticsandexegesis.info




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page