Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Ytizhak and James.

Not all scholars agree that there is a relationship between Tiamat and THWM. 
C. Westermann "Genesis 1-11 A Commentary" p. 105 writes:
"Tiamat is a mythical being and THWM never has this meaning in the Old 
Testament. The phrase "upon the face of the deep" shows that it is not a 
case of a mythical being but of a flood of water. It is impossible 
phonetically and grammatically to derive THWM from the Babylonian Tiamat; 
THWM has a masculine ending, Tiamat a feminine; the H of the Hebrew THWM 
cannot be explained as deriving from Tiamat."

Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "JAMES CHRISTIAN READ" <JCR128 AT student.apu.ac.uk>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 08, 2006 12:19 AM
Subject: [b-hebrew] bara vs' bero in Genesis 1:1


> Yitzhak wrote:
> The word Tiamat is a perfect cognate of the Hebrew word Tehom.  The word
> Tehom appears without the he before it (compare the word ha)arec at the 
> end
> of the verse), which suggests that it may be a proper name.
> END QUOTE
>
> JCR: So, Genesis would read that darkness was on the face
> of Tiamat rather than on the face of the deep?
>
> James C. Read
> UK
>
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