Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] BR)$YT - In the beginning or not?

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] BR)$YT - In the beginning or not?
  • Date: Wed, 23 Sep 2009 08:09:07 -0700

James:

On Wed, Sep 23, 2009 at 2:15 AM, James Christian
<jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>wrote:

> > The form
> > brwyt has traditionally been translated as 'In the beginning' following
> the
> > Greek ἐν ἀρχῇ 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.
> >
> > Most creation myths from around the world (so I’ve been told, and a few
> that I have seen) start with pre-existing matter that the gods then form
> into the world. Hence the belief.
>
> However, ראשית R)$YT has the meaning of first, beginning, used also of the
> first fruits of the harvest. There is no mention of pre-existing matter
> Hi Karl,
>
> This comes from R)$ meaning head, right? This is where we get the
> association of a start from, right? We see a similar double meaning (head
> (not in anatomical sense), start) in Greek with ἐν ἀρχῇ, right?
>
> I know Greek well enough to struggle through the New Testament, but not
enough to argue the finer points.


> But where do you get this idea of the first fruits of the harvest from?


Exodus 23:19, 34:26, Leviticus 2:12, 23:10, Numbers 15:20, 21 among many
others.


> I thought this form only occurred once in the Tanakh?


There are five other verses where it has a B- prefix, just as in Genesis
1;1, with the meaning of “in the beginning”.


> Does anybody know of any
> similar forms in cognate languages? How do the targums handle this term?
>
> In favour of an 'In the beginning' translation I see the following points:
>
> 1) Jerome who claimed to have learned Hebrew in Isreal in the 4th century
> translates the term as 'In principio' (the possibility exists that he is
> just following the Greek though)
> 2) The LXX tranlators rendered the term ἐν ἀρχῇ which almost certainly has
> this meaning.
> 3) The author of the Gospel of John began his gospel with ἐν ἀρχῇ. The
> implication seems to be that he is calling readers attention to BR)$YT and
> that his understanding of the term BR)$YT was Greek ἐν ἀρχῇ
> 4) The term BR)$YT is related to R)$ which basically means 'head'. It is
> not
> a massive leap to see the connection to the sense of 'start' or
> 'beginning'.
>
> Lines of evidence we have not yet considered:
>
> 1) Examples from cognates
> 2) The targum rendition of the term
> 3) The traditional Jewish understanding (does the Talmud say anything on
> the
> subject?)
>
> James Christian


This word is used over 40 times in Tanakh, so it is pretty clear what its
meaning is from the contexts.

Karl W. Randolph.




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page