Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Fwd: Genesis 2:19

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Fwd: Genesis 2:19
  • Date: Sun, 3 Dec 2006 18:42:38 -0800

Bob:

This question has a lot to do with understanding Biblical Hebrew, or
better said, discussing how different schools of thought interpret the
data we are presented in Genesis 1 and 2.

On 12/3/06, Bob MacDonald <bobmacdonald AT shaw.ca> wrote:
I think my last question was a mite stark since you might read it as having
the implied answer 'nothing'. And that is what I meant. But there is a
defence of the question though the ark needs no special pleading about
literalism.

First, you have to be literate to engage in literalism - and as soon as you
grow into the literate, you realize that from a genre point of view: Genesis
1 is a poem and Genesis 2 is a parable. As such they must be translated as
poem and as parable. Surely they are not required to be contorted with
pluperfect as if G-d needs a defence against our ignorance.

Genesis 1 is not a poem. It is prose. The only thing that even looks
poetic is the division into days, which can also be in prose as an
emphatic.

Genesis 2 is presented as history, the personal story of Adam. As such
it is not a parable.

The lesson in Biblical Hebrew is that assumptions imposed on the text by a
culture 2500 years later will not yield a translation that is faithful to
the originator of the text. Whether it is faithful to the culture that
translates it unfaithfully is an issue of how they deal with the bumps on
the road called ignorance and grasping at power rather than those which come
from the interpretive history of the Hebrew language.

I agree with this, except I don't understand that line about "grasping
at power" and how that fits into this discussion.

I am almost ready to ask some real questions about the psalms - but if
everyone is mad at me at this point maybe I should remain silent for a while
longer.

Go ahead and ask them. But remember that even a fool will be
considered wise if he keeps his mouth shut (Proverbs 17) (which I keep
forgetting).

Bob

Karl W. Randolph.




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page