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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Genesis 2:6

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  • From: "Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>
  • To: "Peter Kirk" <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Genesis 2:6
  • Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2005 14:31:05 +0300

Well, I see two (well, in fact about 6 continuing into verse 9) successive clauses with WAYYIQTOL verbs, which is what I mean by a chain of WAYYIQTOLs. There is no evidence for a break in the chain in the middle of verse 7.

Only if we assume the correct orthography. But suppose the pause after ha-adam (comma) is the break?

Anyway, the object which was breathed in this middle clause is not dust, but the breath of life.

Only in VSO pattern. Imagine, however, "dust of the earth blew in his face, [the face of] the living being. And the man existed for a living soul." That is, he existed to irrigate.
I mean, Peter, I don't defend that translation 100%. But I don't believe that narrators of the Torah were so stupid as to insert two contradictory accounts of creation in two adjacent chapters. So I am inclinded to read Gen2:7 not as creation, but as sending the man forward to a task, and that task seems to be irrigation. With that exegetical need in mind, I try to read Gen2:5-7.
Making a man ou of dust, breathing life into his nostrils, and putting two contradiction creations nearby seems to make no less tortured reading.

Vadim Cherny




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