Jason Hare wrote:I'm mostly asking just to get this subforum off the ground. Then again, I can see the several threads and you move to the subforum since it was opened.
It is most natural to read רֵאשִׁית in a construct relationship to what follows, and there's nothing against reading out this way, as far as I can tell.
It was suggested by Rashi.
I'm not talking about pronunciation. I'm talking about syntactic relationships between the parts of the verses.
Well if you want to refer to Rashi it's probably worth giving a reference (and click 'show')
https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cd ... pter-1.htm
William Lane Craig has some comment on that rashi here
https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writing ... -creation/
Rashi's argument is not purely grammatical. He mentoins grammar and theology. And i'm not sure if Rashi thinks his argument can stand on grammar alone.
If you did want to take Beraishit in construct then I think you can still leave the rest of the verse as is, by saying "In the beginning of When God created the heaven and the earth"
That still doesn't state the beginning of what. Of creation.. or of the account.
There are some orthodox jewish translations based on Rashi that say things like "In the beginning of God's creating" but it overlooks that bara is in the perfect form! Rashi may well read it as 'creating'.
There is some interpretation here in that Rashi may think that if it says "In the beginning" then it means the complete beginning nothing exists before then and so any mention of something it hasn't yet mentioned God creating, e.g. water (God's spirit 'hovering' over the water).. becomes problematic for him.. He could suggest that the water was created straight after the heaven and the earth, but anyhow. He uses the fact that water was there as an argument to say see the story isn't starting at the very beginning. So that's an argument to say "In the beginning of" And he thinks if it's construct like that then it allows for that not being the complete beginning. And so since the story isn't starting in the beginning, it is then not problematic for it to mention the water that God's spirit hover over.
The thing is, even if you read it as absolute, you could still say it's saying "in the beginning" (of the story / or of the account).
Ralph Zak