nili95 wrote:Sadly, my knowledge of Greek is pretty much limited to terms such as spanikopita. It should be obvious that I am not qualified to pass judgment on the quality of the Greek translations, but the LXX is clearly relevant. So, turning to the LXX Gen 1:1, is not the same Greek term used in Hos. 1:2 and, if so, does it not suggest the same equivalency as that suggested by Rashi?
Unfortunately Greek doesn't have words that differentiate between the nuances given by the Hebrew
ראשית and
תחיה, with the Greek αρχη translating quite a few Hebrew Tanakh words:
ראש ;
ראשית ;
תחיה ;
קדם ;
ראשון ;
ממלכה ;
קצה ;
ממשלה ;
עולם ;
צמרת ;
פנה ;
משרה ;
קדמה, plus a few more single instances where it may be confusion on part of the Greek translator - this list are the most common ones
I should've specified that I was pointing to the LXX not to note that they were pointing out a difference between
ראשית and
תחיה, but rather that the translator took
ראשית to be the absolute, and not the construct state of the noun - If they'd understood
ראשית as being the construct state, then the words proceeding would be in the genitive case ("of" in English -
the word "of" God etc., etc), which none of the Greek words in Gen 1:1 are:
Εν (preposition)
αρχη (noun, dative)
εποιησεν (verb, aorist ('past'-ish), indicative, active)
ο (definite article, nominative ('subject'))
Θεος (noun, nominative)
τον (definite article, accusative ('object'))
ουρανον (noun, accusative)
και (conjunction)
την (definite article, accusative)
γην (noun, accusative)
Compare this to Hosea 1:2, and the word following
Αρχη in the translation -
λογου - is the genitive case form of
λογος, indicating that the translator has taken
תחלת as being in the construct state, and so has then connected it to the following word by having it in the genitive case.
Looking at this and the Greek translation of both
ראשית and
תחיה as Αρχη, this may be the cause for why now in modern Hebrew there isn't really a distinction between the two - the Greek of the diaspora Jews has affected the understanding of Hebrew words.
Hope that helps!