First of all we would have to be happy that Alter respected Hebrew
syntax unlike virtually all other commonly used translation, that in
fact all misunderstand Genesis' ouverture.
Second, I don't think the absence of a main verb in English has got
anything to do with bad style. English has a nice way of shortly
stating verbless circumstantial clauses such as "the cat having left
the house, dozens of mice entered and had the time of their lives" or
whatever. I'm no English speaker, and not even sure if this type of
clause is possible, but I never thought it was grammatically wrong. ...
... "and God's breath hovering over the waters" is not a main clause in
the Hebrew equivalent, and it's not a main clause in English in this
translation, which to me is a great improvement.
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