Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Joel Stucki" <joel AT stucki.ws>]

On 7/2/06, Don Grothe <grothe AT uniontel.net> wrote:
> Can the word "was" in the verse "Now the earth was unformed and void" be translated 
> "became"?
>
> This is one response from a Hebrew Scholar:
>
> When the word hayah refers to a change in state, then it takes a le- before the noun; 
> here we have no le- so this is a report of a state that was, not that became something 
> from something else.  At this stage in the Creation story, we are just getting the 
> first reports on the initial state of chaos (an early mix of time/space/energy/matter), 
> which only later "became" something else more ordered.

"an early mix of time/space/energy/matter" seems absurd in this
context since each one of those words identify concepts that would
have been unknown to Moshe and his contemporaries. This sounds like an
attempt to synthesize the big bang with Genesis rather than an attempt
to understand the meaning of an ancient text. I recommend you look at
other creation accounts in ANE texts such as Enuma Elish and also
compare it to other creation references in the Tanakh. particularly
Job 38 is a great one. This is a story of beating back chaos,
particularly the sea. The chaotic state described can best be
understood as a mass of dark chaotic waters that will eventually be
lighted and formed into the sky and sea. They must be pulled back to
allow the heavens and the earth to exist between them. It could even
be argued that this is only a creation of the heavens and the earth
and that the waters above the heavens and below the land were
pre-existent.

Joel Stucki