Biblical Hebrew Forum

["JAMES CHRISTIAN READ" <JCR128 AT student.apu.ac.uk>]

> Yitzhak wrote:
>  It is therefore significant that
> the word tehom is used as a proper name in the right place (before
> division of the seas).
> END QUOTE
>
> JCR: I think this is an overstatement that may well be
> quite a lot less significant than to imply a direct
> relation with the tiamat myth. There is nothing in
> the context whatsoever which personifies tehom and the
> sense is very much of a thing rather than a being.
>
> The very phrase ' The earth was formless and void, and
> darkness was over the surface of the deep' seems, in
> my mind, to recall only thoughts of lifeless matter
> that are yet to be prepared for the arrival of life.

Yitzhak:
The thing that you seem to be overlooking is that your
translation adds a "the" that is not present in the Hebrew
text.  This would be equivalent to you writing in English,
"The earth was formless and void and darkness was over
the surface of Deep."  Or "Abyss," or "Ocean."  It is used
as a proper name.  The use of this specific word, as a
proper name like this, at this place of the Creation story,
just appears to be too coincidental.
END QUOTE

JCR: The reason we have to add the word 'the' in English 
translation is really quite simple. The fact is, we 
don't have a concept of 'Ocean', 'Sea', 'Abyss' or 
'Deep' which can be used as a proper name as these 
are generic concepts and there can be many of each 
one.

Another similar, though opposite, example of such 
translation limitations is how haelohim is often 
translated as 'God' in English which is used as a 
proper name but in neither Greek nor Hebrew had this 
usage as 'haelohim' and 'ho theos' are used as titles 
which can be and are used of other gods.

Your observation is therefore not evidence of an 
illusion to the foreign god Tiamat but merely linguistic 
evidence that in hebrew there was a concept of 'Deep' 
which was understood to be so singular in existence 
that it could be attributed a proper name which is 
untranslatable in English.

James C. Read
UK