ברא as ברוא in Genesis 1:1

[ducky]

Hello Ralph, I read what you say.
A lot of stuff.

Can you narrow it to the specific point? And also add the reason, and what you want to claim by giving that point.

[ralph]

Hello Ralph, I read what you say.
A lot of stuff.

Can you narrow it to the specific point? And also add the reason, and what you want to claim by giving that point.

I've been asking you

Does the sentence "In a second, Bill ate all the chips" involve a construct i.e. is 'second' a construct?

Does the sentence "In the morning, Bill ate all the chips" involve a construct i.e. is "morning" a construct?

But you didn't answer, you just thought I was comparing the two sentences, or you thought I was asking something else.

As for the reason, it may be dependent on your answer, and there are many variables. Simplest thing is if you can answer those questions, and we go from there. And we will have more understanding and common ground this way.

Thanks

Ralph Zak

[ducky]

Both sentences are no construct state.
But notice that both of these sentences do not resemble the verse we're talking about.

We're talking about a word that would be referring to a place of time - which is a specific singular place of time.
in those cases, it should come stuck to something.

at a beginning, I get up from bed
(at a beginning of What?)

Also, you wrote a sentence as :
During an evening of sorrow, I drank a beer

But notice that there are two roles for the indefinite article.
1. specific singular noun.
2. general singular noun

During an evening of sorrow, I drank a beer
an evening = is not specific - it is "each evening of sorrow" - "every evening of sorrow"
a bottle = only one single bottle in these special evenings.

So:
During an evening of sorrow, I drank a beer
=
every evening of sorrow, I drank a beer

You can replace the "an" of the "evening" with "each" or "every"
but you can't replace the "a" of the bottle

Because the first indefinite article is not about a specific singular evening - but it represents the singular idea of sorrow, which defines the type of evening.

but the second indefinite article represents the idea of the singularity of the bottle
(as only one bottle for each one of the (countless) evenings of sorrow

[HebrewLover]

My personal thoughts. I don't know if this holds up under scrutiny.

The opposite of רֵאשִׁית is אַחֲרִית. There is a collocation אַחֲרִית הַיָּמִים which seems to mean 'the last days' or 'the latter days'. The way that the LXX translates it is the same as what we find in Hebrews 1:2, Acts 2:17, etc. This a phrase that has an eschatological bent to it as it is the time when "you" will understand the counsel of the Lord perfectly (Jeremiah 23:20); I suppose it is a time with the perfect shall come. The word אַחֲרִית, however, can appear by itself without the article, yet still apparently definite (e.g. Isaiah 46:10).

What I'm saying, then, is that perhaps there a collocation like רֵאשִׁית הַיָּמִים that later got truncated and then conventionalized as simply רֵאשִׁית. This would explain that lack of the article and leave the Masoretic pointing alone at the same time.

Two reasons this may be a weak explanation: First, there are no hard examples of the collocation רֵאשִׁית הַיָּמִים. Second, according to the BHS apparatus, the Samaritan Pentateuch might support simply adding an article to the word.

-Andrew Hodge

[ducky]

There is another opinion to read the בראשית as an independent word with the meaning of בראשית הימים
And the word ימים should be understood by default since it comes later in the context.

in the same sense of מראשית עד אחרית which the words are also written alone but it is understood as
מראשית הימים and so on

And so the Sheva stays and gives that word ראשית the form of the first part of a construct state without the second part.

[Isaac Fried]

The all knowing Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construct_state
says about the Hebrew "construct state" סמיכות:
"Simply put, smikhut consists of combining two nouns, often with the second noun combined with the definite article, to create a third noun."
So, if it is a name of something it is סמיכות.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Isaac Fried]

Here is an example: תַּפּוּחַ זָהָב (apple gold), 'orange', is סמיכוּת since it is a fruit name, but תַּפּוּחַ זָהוֹב is not סמיכוּת, since זָהוֹב = זה-הוּא-ב contains the internal personal pronoun הוּא, referring to the said תַּפּוּחַ, apple, to indicate that it, הוּא, carries the color property of זהב, gold.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

[Mira de Vries]

That's an interesting mnemonic, but:
a. In Biblical Hebrew the waw in זָהוֹב would ordinarily not be written;
b. What happens when instead of a תַּפּוּחַ זָהָב (btw not a Biblical fruit) you have a תאנה זהובה?

Returning to בראשית, the idea of a truncated סמיכות would appeal to me were it not the very first word in the entire document, not exactly scribbled on a post-it.

[HebrewLover]

I am not suggesting that the סמיכות is a random truncation (like what might happen on a post-it note). Perhaps it was conventionalized, idiomatic. It's common for languages to have conventionalized idioms (regardless of their historical development) that function as obliques. In English, I can use the idiom 'at college'. 'So-and-so is at college as a freshman this year.' Usually a prepositional phrase like that (with a count noun) would require a definite or indefinite article. It doesn't though; it's an idiom.

Maybe בראשית functions the same way, idiomatically. And maybe it developed through truncation like English 'good evening'.

'Last night' is another example of an idiomatic oblique in English (this time it is temporal in its semantics just like בראשית).

As a final thought, if ראשית is conceptually one of a kind. That is, if there is only one 'beginning' that could be referred to in this context, this itself may be a motivation to not use the article. (This would explain the construction without suggesting truncation.) As a comparison, note how 'sun' and 'moon' are referred to in the Greek of Luke 21:25. They lack the article, presumably because those nouns are monadic, they are one of a kind.

-Andrew Hodge

[Isaac Fried]

Mira,
a. In my very personal opinion it matters little if זָהוֹב is written in full, or is written lacking a waw, as long as the O of ZAHOB is there.
b.If תאנה זהובה is a recognized species of fig, and is so named, then the pair stand סמוכים and are related by סמיכות. Otherwise, זהובה is but describing the appearance of the תאנה, similarly to תאנה מתוּקה, 'sweet fig'.
c. Here are some more סמיכויות
עמוּד חשמל ,סמרטוט רצפה, סכין לחם, תוּת שדה, צנוֹר נפט, לוח שנה, מטוס קרב, חשבון בנק, כובע טמבל, נר נשמה

Isaac Fried, Boston University