Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Steve Miller" <smille10 AT sbcglobal.net>]

Hi James,
Thanks for pointing out these details.

Your Hebrew came thru as ?'s to me, but I don't think it mattered. 
My comments below.

Sincerely,
-Steve Miller
Detroit
www.voiceInWilderness.info
The Lord send your help from the sanctuary,
out of Zion support thee,
remember all your offerings,
and consume your burnt offering. Selah (Psalm 20:2-3)
> -----Original Message-----
> From: James Read Sent: Sunday, September 20, 2009 4:30 AM
> To: B-Hebrew
> Subject: [b-hebrew] Genesis 1:1-5
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> the first pe separated paragraph of Genesis (as you all know) is Genesis
> 1:1-5
> 
> ?????? ??? ????? ?? ????? ??? ???? ????? ???? ??? ???? ???? ?? ???
> ???? ???? ????? ????? ?? ??? ???? ????? ????? ??? ??? ???? ??? ????
> ????? ?? ???? ?? ??? ????? ????? ??? ???? ???? ???? ????? ????? ????
> ??? ????? ??? ???? ???? ??? ???? ??? ??? ???
> 
> Even such a simple section has many points worthy of discussion. The
> form brwyt has traditionally been translated as 'In the beginning'
> following the Greek  ?? ???? and the Latin 'In principio'. It has been
> suggested (does anybody have the reference for this?) that this is a
> mistranslation and that the sense is not of an ultimate beginning but
> merely of a declaration of the initial state of things before Elohim
> set about creating stuff.
> 
> BR) has traditionally been understood as a synonym of 'make' but used
> exclusively with God and therefore an act of creation from nothing (ex
> nihilo). This view has also been challenged. It has been proposed, if
> memory serves correctly, to be a derivative of a root meaning of
> cutting the shape as a sculptor chisels a piece of wood (again, does
> anybody have the exact reference for this?).

[Steve Miller] "asa" "make" is much more general than "bara", create. "bara
is a small subset of "asa". Any act of "bara" can also be called an act of
"asa" (Gen 1:26-27; 9:6), but not vice-versa.
"Bara" is to bring into existence something that did not exist before. As
you said, only God can do it. It does not have to be ex nihilo.

Gen 2:3 "all His work which God created to make" shows that bara comes 1st.
After that there may further work of asa.

> 
> ?????? ??? ????? ?? ????? ??? ???? has traditionally been translated
> as 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth'. This
> translation I challenge as a misrepresentation of what the original
> Hebrew actually said. The terms ???? and ??? are most commonly used
> with the sense of 'sky' and 'land' from the human perspective of what
> is generally above and below and I think this was the sense of the
> original Hebrew.

[Steve Miller] In v1 God created the shamaim and the erets. Then in vv 6-8,
God made the firmament, and named the firmament, shamaim. How could this be
if He already created it in v1? It is 2 different meanings of shamaim. In v1
it is the heavens. In v8 it is the sky around the earth.

Similarly, there are 2 meanings for erets: planet earth in v1, and land (as
opposed to sea) in vv 9-10.

There are also 2 meanings for yom (day): The light part of the day (v5a) as
opposed to night, and the complete period including both light and darkness
(v5b).

> 
> ????? ???? ??? ???? This phrase we have discussed many times with
> respect to the traditional understanding of the earth being formless
> and waste in its initial state of creation.
> 
> ???? ?? ??? ???? 'And it was dark on the surface of Tehom'. This
> phrase is often used as argument that the creation account is an
> adaptation of the Babylonian creation myth involving Tiamat. While
> such a vain discussion can have much comical value it seems clear to
> me that 'Tehom' was the proper name of the universal ocean that
> covered the land in its initial creation state.
> 
[Steve Miller] Thanks. I hadn't heard that about tehom. Makes sense.

> ???? ????? ????? ?? ??? ???? This phrase is interesting. How best to
> translate ???? Literally, it means breath and traditionally the phrase
> ??? ????? has been translated as 'God's spirit'. It has been suggested
> (does anybody have the reference?) that this is an idiomatic phrase
> meaning something like 'great wind', 'really strong wind' or 'gale
> force wind'. 

[Steve Miller] I don't agree with that. That translator may be thinking of
El instead of Elohim. Elohim is used 2606 times in the Bible. KJV translated
it as "mighty" twice (Ge 23:6; Ex 9:28), but both of these would be better
translated as "of God".

> ????? is a difficult form to analyse occurring only once
> in the corpus. Traditional translations include 'hovering', 'moving
> back and forth'. If we were to go with the 'great wind' translation
> perhaps we could theorise a 'and a great wind was blowing on the
> surface of the waters' translation.
> 
[Steve Miller] rachaph is used 3 times in the Bible, not just once (Deu
32:11; Jer 23:9).

> In any case, it would seem that the general picture being built up is
> of an initial land and sky in total darkness. The land being covered
> with a vast ocean and either God's breathe or a great wind active in
> some way on the surface of the water (do we imagine this being visible
> by disturbance on the surface of the water?).
> 
> ????? ????? ??? ??? Traditionally we translation this as 'And God said
> "Let there be light"'. The 'let there be light' idiom we owe to
> William Tyndale who coined the phrase structure 'let there be...'.
> Personally, I don't think this is particularly good English (at least
> not in our modern world). I see this as a direct command 'Make
> light!'. The Greek of the LXX agrees with the thought of a direct
> command using the verb 'to make' but uses the passive version '???
> ????? ? ???? ???????? ???'. In English, we get the awkward translation
> of 'light be made' which can be made more palatable by a return to the
> 'let...' structure 'let light be made'.
> 
[Steve Miller] Since asa is not there, your translation is making the text
say something it doesn't. If you don't like Tyndale's translation, it could
be "There will be light". 
The text does not say that God created or made light here. I think light, as
well as all forms of energy, was included in v1 as part of God's creating
the heavens and the earth. Here in v3, God caused light to shine on the dark
earth as He did in our dark hearts (2 Cor 4:6).

> We then go on to see that light was made and Elohim said that it was
> good ???? ??? ???? ????? ?? ???? ?? ???.
> 
> ????? ????? ??? ???? ???? ???? We are told that Elohim 'made a
> division' between the light and the darkness. I'm not sure of this
> translation. What does it mean to 'make a division'? I feel that this
> may be an idiomatic phrase but I'm not sure. Could it mean that Elohim
> 'defined' light and darkness?
> 
[Steve Miller] It seems that God changed the relation of light and darkness.
Maybe before the division, if there was a little light in a big dark volume,
the light would dissipate. 

> ???? ??? ???? ??? 'And there was evening and there was morning'. This
> phrase provokes many questions especially seeing that the Sun had not
> yet been made. What exactly does this phrase mean? We know that the
> Hebrew day began and ended with sunset and went from the evening of
> one day to the next. 

[Steve Miller] Each of the next 5 days begins with morning and ends with the
morning of the next day. So a day is morning to morning. The sequence is the
same:
God does some work
Then there is evening
Then there is morning
The day is complete

The phrase, "then there was evening, and then there was morning" marks the
completion of each day, not its beginning.

> Does this phrase really suggest a literal sunset
> and sunrise when there was yet no Sun? Did the Hebrews not even
> associate the phenomenon of daylight as originating with the Sun? Or
> is this just a poetic way of marking the beginning and end of one of
> Elohim's workloads?
> 
[Steve Miller] Since there was no sun, it couldn't be sunrise and sunset.
The Bible doesn't tell us where the light came from. Evening is the change
from light to dark. Morning is the change from dark to light.

> ??? ??? Unlike following sections this section ends with a cardinal
> number rather than an ordinal number. Literally 'day one' rather than
> 'the first day'. I've never really been sure why. Any suggestions?
> 
[Steve Miller] Because it wasn't the 1st day, just "one day". If it had been
the very 1st day, then I would expect the Bible to call it that, especially
since the following 6 days are ordinal. The following days are ordinal
because they are the 2nd, 3rd etc relative to this "one day".

The Bible does not tell us when this "one day" began, but it does for the
following days. They all began with morning, which is the changing of
darkness to light. Therefore, day one began when God said, Let there be
light in v3. Verses 1-2 happened before this day one.

> ???? ??? ???? ??? ??? ??? Finally, could this be a construct form?
> That is to say could this be 'And there was sunset and sunrise of day
> one?'
> 
> James Christian
>