בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים

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kwrandolph
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Re: בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים

Post by kwrandolph »

SteveMiller wrote:Gen 1:1 was the beginning of everything.
And its initial state was described in verse 2.
SteveMiller wrote:Water was not already there. God created it in 1:1.
True.
SteveMiller wrote:1:2 takes place after 1:1. The earth became waste and desolate.
The word תהו refers to a place that is lifeless, uninhabited. Sometimes it’s used referring just to the fact that the place has been abandoned by human inhabitants, i.e. ghost town, but here to absolute lifelessness. תהו is also used to refer to the lifeless idols, made of stone and whatever, in contrast to the living God.

The word בהו is used just three times, and all three times in connection to תהו and appears to refer to the quietness of where nothing is moving, no life. This is in contrast to a crowd המון with its noise, hustle and bustle, constant movement.

This describes the initial state of the world as God created it. The first step in making it alive was to give it light in verse three.
SteveMiller wrote:Day one, which is not the first day ever, begins in 1:3 when God said, Let there be light.
????????

Karl W. Randolph.
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Re: בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים

Post by kwrandolph »

keiderlingt wrote:
his entire argument falls on the way the Hebrew consonants are vowel pointed, which are not more than Masoretic guesswork.
"Guesswork" is probably the wrong word to use - the Masoretes were preserving a tradition based on established rules that were grounded in Talmud (see Nedarim 37b:6 for example) and had much earlier roots. Israel Yeivin's "Introduction to the Tiberian Masorah" is a great place to start in understanding what they really were doing.
I’ll have to agree with the quote above. The vowel points are guesswork, educated guesswork, but guesswork nonetheless.

When I looked at the vowel points, I found verbs changed to nouns, nouns changed to verbs, Hophals changed to Hiphils, Qals changed to Piels, etc. etc. The choice of which vowels to put in each verse very often was guesswork, guesswork based on the fact that they (the Masoretes) spoke a different Hebrew, with a different pronunciation, with a different grammar and many vocabulary words having different meanings, than what is found in Biblical Hebrew.

I’m among the first to deny that what the Masoretes did was random guesswork. At the same time, when the Masoretes came to verses with some sort of structure that made no sense according to their Tiberian Hebrew, that they basically made guesses to try to resolve what didn’t make sense.

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Re: בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים

Post by SteveMiller »

kwrandolph wrote:
SteveMiller wrote:Gen 1:1 was the beginning of everything.
And its initial state was described in verse 2.
I understand it that God created the heavens and earth in good order in v1. "created" is a complete act.
And the earth became tohu and bohu. The text allows for that.

I understand that you are saying v1-2a mean: In the beginning God created the heavens and a tohu and bohu earth in the dark.
But that is not compatible with the meaning of the word "create".
That is why people butcher the text to say, In the beginning of God's creating the heavens and the earth.
Because it does not make sense to say, God created an unfinished earth.

Then the rest of the chapter is not the details of v1, but what God did after v1, right?
That is how I read it.
kwrandolph wrote:
SteveMiller wrote:1:2 takes place after 1:1. The earth became waste and desolate.
The word תהו refers to a place that is lifeless, uninhabited. Sometimes it’s used referring just to the fact that the place has been abandoned by human inhabitants, i.e. ghost town, but here to absolute lifelessness. תהו is also used to refer to the lifeless idols, made of stone and whatever, in contrast to the living God.

The word בהו is used just three times, and all three times in connection to תהו and appears to refer to the quietness of where nothing is moving, no life. This is in contrast to a crowd המון with its noise, hustle and bustle, constant movement.

This describes the initial state of the world as God created it. The first step in making it alive was to give it light in verse three.
tohu and bohu are definitely something bad. I would say tohu means purposeless.

I don't think God created light in v3. God had created it in v1. I agree with how you said it. God gave light to the earth in v3.
kwrandolph wrote:
SteveMiller wrote:Day one, which is not the first day ever, begins in 1:3 when God said, Let there be light.
????????

Karl W. Randolph.
I explained earlier why the day one began in v3. When do you think the day one began? how long was it?
The reason I say day one was not the first day is because the text says yom echad instead of yom rishon.
If it was the first day ever, it should say, yom harishon. This is in striking contrast to the other days which are all ordinal: 2nd day, 3rd day, etc.

All the dating methods have assumptions which may be wrong.
However we know for sure that dinosaurs covered the earth at one time. Now there are none. What happened to them? Why would God go to all the trouble to preserve them on Noah's ark only to let them go extinct shortly afterward? I don't think they were around at the time of Noah's ark. I think they existed between Gen 1:1 and 1:2.
Sincerely yours,
Steve Miller
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Honesty is the best policy. - George Washington (1732-99)
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Re: בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים

Post by Jemoh66 »

Verse 1 — a theological proposition: God created everything there is whether seen or unseen.
I don't subscribe to it but the JPS rendering is a possibility. It is based on a reading sans nikud. But it's difficult to entertain that the Jews would have forgotten how to vocalize the opening phrase of their holy writings.

Verse 2 — I disagree with you here Steve. A Subject fronted phrase in narrative is either a parenthetical phrase or it marks the beginning of a new paragraph. If the author meant to say the earth BECAME tohu and bohu he would have used a wayyiqtol: vayhi haaretz tohu vavohu.

As for the idea that God would not create the earth in a so called negative state, that doesn't really hold, since in a similar way God brought bare land out of the waters first then commanded the earth to shoot out plants. It's certainly negative for the land to be bare, i.e. fruitless.

Verse 3 — I agree with the echad vs harishon argument. Also I think this teaches that God created the day.
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Re: בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים

Post by SteveMiller »

Jemoh66 wrote:Verse 1 — a theological proposition: God created everything there is whether seen or unseen.
I don't subscribe to it but the JPS rendering is a possibility. It is based on a reading sans nikud. But it's difficult to entertain that the Jews would have forgotten how to vocalize the opening phrase of their holy writings.
Hi Jonathan,
Thank you for replying.
The JPS I have and the JPS I find on the web translates v1 like KJV. I don't think it is possible to translate v1 as a dependent clause modifying v2 because v2 starts with "and". It is also not good writing. v1 is the statement to be emphasized. Making it a dependent clause makes v2 the more important.
Jemoh66 wrote:Verse 2 — I disagree with you here Steve. A Subject fronted phrase in narrative is either a parenthetical phrase or it marks the beginning of a new paragraph. If the author meant to say the earth BECAME tohu and bohu he would have used a wayyiqtol: vayhi haaretz tohu vavohu.
verse 2 is a break in the narrative. If the text had used a waw-consecutive, that would be a continuation of the narrative. In the beginning God created the heavens and earth in good order. After a gap in time, the earth became tohu and bohu. It implies that it was not God's perfect will for the earth to become like that because the subject of v2 is "the earth" and not "God".
Jemoh66 wrote:As for the idea that God would not create the earth in a so called negative state, that doesn't really hold, since in a similar way God brought bare land out of the waters first then commanded the earth to shoot out plants. It's certainly negative for the land to be bare, i.e. fruitless.
I agree. What I meant is that the word bara , create, applies to a finished product. So the earth God created in v1 would not be a formless blob in the dark. When God brought forth the barren land out of the sea, it doesn't say He created anything. That was a step in making the earth summarized in 2:4.
Jemoh66 wrote:Verse 3 — I agree with the echad vs harishon argument. Also I think this teaches that God created the day.
Why do you say that teaches that God created the day?

Thanks Jonathan.
Sincerely yours,
Steve Miller
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kwrandolph
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Re: בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים

Post by kwrandolph »

SteveMiller wrote:
kwrandolph wrote:
SteveMiller wrote:Gen 1:1 was the beginning of everything.
And its initial state was described in verse 2.
I understand it that God created the heavens and earth in good order in v1. "created" is a complete act.
And the earth became tohu and bohu. The text allows for that.

I understand that you are saying v1-2a mean: In the beginning God created the heavens and a tohu and bohu earth in the dark.
But that is not compatible with the meaning of the word "create".
That is why people butcher the text to say, In the beginning of God's creating the heavens and the earth.
Because it does not make sense to say, God created an unfinished earth.

Then the rest of the chapter is not the details of v1, but what God did after v1, right?
That is how I read it.
This is a mixed theological and linguistic question.

According to the theology, God could have created the universe complete, with all animals and people already on it, in an instant, he didn’t need six days. So it’s not a question of what God could have done, but what did God say he did?

The linguistic question is, what did God say he did? The linguistic answer is that the rest of the chapter is what God did after the initial creation.
SteveMiller wrote:
kwrandolph wrote:
SteveMiller wrote:1:2 takes place after 1:1. The earth became waste and desolate.
The word תהו refers to a place that is lifeless, uninhabited. Sometimes it’s used referring just to the fact that the place has been abandoned by human inhabitants, i.e. ghost town, but here to absolute lifelessness. תהו is also used to refer to the lifeless idols, made of stone and whatever, in contrast to the living God.

The word בהו is used just three times, and all three times in connection to תהו and appears to refer to the quietness of where nothing is moving, no life. This is in contrast to a crowd המון with its noise, hustle and bustle, constant movement.

This describes the initial state of the world as God created it. The first step in making it alive was to give it light in verse three.
tohu and bohu are definitely something bad. I would say tohu means purposeless.
You have a copy of my dictionary, but for those on this list who don’t, I list the definition: ‎תהו uninhabited Is 45:18, uninhabited area, wilderness Dt 32:10, Jb 6:18 ⇒ uninhabited empty place Jb 26:7, uninhabited because depopulated Is 24:10, 34:11, uselessly (lifelessly) Is 45:19 ⇒ lifeless Gn 1:2, lifeless object Is 49:4, 59:4, used also with idols in contrast with the living God Is 41:29, 44:9 I think I list all 12 times תהו is used in Tanakh. In looking at all 12 times the word is used is why I came to the conclusion that the basic idea of the word is uninhabited, lifeless.
SteveMiller wrote:I don't think God created light in v3. God had created it in v1. I agree with how you said it. God gave light to the earth in v3.
This comes to the question, what is the nature of light? Is it a separate creation? Or is it the byproduct of setting atoms into motion? From physics I learn that light is the result of nuclear motion.

The picture I get from reading Genesis 1:1–3 is that God created the earth, which initially was absolutely still, lifeless, in darkness, yet already had atoms of all kinds and molecular compounds. Then God set the completed earth into motion, and light is the result of motion.
SteveMiller wrote:
kwrandolph wrote:
SteveMiller wrote:Day one, which is not the first day ever, begins in 1:3 when God said, Let there be light.
????????

Karl W. Randolph.
I explained earlier why the day one began in v3. When do you think the day one began? how long was it?
The reason I say day one was not the first day is because the text says yom echad instead of yom rishon.
If it was the first day ever, it should say, yom harishon. This is in striking contrast to the other days which are all ordinal: 2nd day, 3rd day, etc.
I think you put too much emphasis on the difference between ordinal and cardinal numbers here.
SteveMiller wrote:All the dating methods have assumptions which may be wrong.
However we know for sure that dinosaurs covered the earth at one time. Now there are none. What happened to them? Why would God go to all the trouble to preserve them on Noah's ark only to let them go extinct shortly afterward? I don't think they were around at the time of Noah's ark. I think they existed between Gen 1:1 and 1:2.
What about the dinosaurs? When did they go extinct? Did they go extinct? Did people have interactions with them?

For example, what was the “grendel” that Beowulf killed? While that was in Denmark, and referencing to other histories is datable to about 500 AD, apparently that animal was widespread, for in Switzerland there’s a city named “Forest of the Grendels” — Grindelwald. The description fits the T-Rex. It also fits the burrunjur in some very wild areas in Australia.

What about other records in history? For example, in English records, there was one farmer who killed a “dragon” that had three horns on its head. Another record another farmer killed one that had spikes on its tail. And still more of sightings, and this is just England. In other very remote places, sightings continue up to this day. Are all dinosaurs extinct? Have they become very few because humans killed them off and loss of habitat?

Is there any need to postulate a gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2? Is there any linguistic reason to say that that gap must be there?

Karl W. Randolph.
kwrandolph
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Re: בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים

Post by kwrandolph »

Jemoh66 wrote:Verse 1 — a theological proposition: God created everything there is whether seen or unseen.
I don't subscribe to it but the JPS rendering is a possibility. It is based on a reading sans nikud. But it's difficult to entertain that the Jews would have forgotten how to vocalize the opening phrase of their holy writings.
After a thousand years of no native speakers, and I emphasize “native” here, and the vocalization didn’t change due to the pressure of the languages that they spoke natively? Even with native speakers vocalizations change over time, but with non-native speakers, vocalizations can change in a generation.

That’s one reason I read the unpointed text.

Karl W. Randolph.
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Re: בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים

Post by kwrandolph »

SteveMiller wrote:
Jemoh66 wrote:Verse 2 — I disagree with you here Steve. A Subject fronted phrase in narrative is either a parenthetical phrase or it marks the beginning of a new paragraph. If the author meant to say the earth BECAME tohu and bohu he would have used a wayyiqtol: vayhi haaretz tohu vavohu.
verse 2 is a break in the narrative. If the text had used a waw-consecutive, that would be a continuation of the narrative. In the beginning God created the heavens and earth in good order. After a gap in time, the earth became tohu and bohu. It implies that it was not God's perfect will for the earth to become like that because the subject of v2 is "the earth" and not "God".
Verse 2 is both a continuation of the narrative, and a break. It’s a break in that we have a change in subject, also indicated by the use of the Qatal verb, and it’s a continuation in that the verse starts with “and”.
SteveMiller wrote:
Jemoh66 wrote:As for the idea that God would not create the earth in a so called negative state, that doesn't really hold, since in a similar way God brought bare land out of the waters first then commanded the earth to shoot out plants. It's certainly negative for the land to be bare, i.e. fruitless.
I agree. What I meant is that the word bara , create, applies to a finished product. So the earth God created in v1 would not be a formless blob in the dark. When God brought forth the barren land out of the sea, it doesn't say He created anything. That was a step in making the earth summarized in 2:4.
In looking at the definitions of the terms תהו ובהו we don’t get the picture that the earth was “a formless blob” in verse 2.

When I bring home a piece of modeling clay from the craft store, it’s not formless, it just doesn’t have the form that I want it to have. So what I do is to reshape it to have the form that I want.

The linguistic picture given in Genesis 1 is of God creating the clay in verse 1, its initial status in verse 2, then the rest of the chapter is reshaping the clay to give it the form that he wants it to have.

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Re: בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים

Post by SteveMiller »

kwrandolph wrote:
SteveMiller wrote:I don't think God created light in v3. God had created it in v1. I agree with how you said it. God gave light to the earth in v3.
This comes to the question, what is the nature of light? Is it a separate creation? Or is it the byproduct of setting atoms into motion? From physics I learn that light is the result of nuclear motion.

The picture I get from reading Genesis 1:1–3 is that God created the earth, which initially was absolutely still, lifeless, in darkness, yet already had atoms of all kinds and molecular compounds. Then God set the completed earth into motion, and light is the result of motion.
So did God create light in v1 or v3?
kwrandolph wrote: I think you put too much emphasis on the difference between ordinal and cardinal numbers here.
It should mean something.
kwrandolph wrote:
SteveMiller wrote:All the dating methods have assumptions which may be wrong.
However we know for sure that dinosaurs covered the earth at one time. Now there are none. What happened to them? Why would God go to all the trouble to preserve them on Noah's ark only to let them go extinct shortly afterward? I don't think they were around at the time of Noah's ark. I think they existed between Gen 1:1 and 1:2.
What about the dinosaurs? When did they go extinct? Did they go extinct? Did people have interactions with them?

For example, what was the “grendel” that Beowulf killed? While that was in Denmark, and referencing to other histories is datable to about 500 AD, apparently that animal was widespread, for in Switzerland there’s a city named “Forest of the Grendels” — Grindelwald. The description fits the T-Rex. It also fits the burrunjur in some very wild areas in Australia.

What about other records in history? For example, in English records, there was one farmer who killed a “dragon” that had three horns on its head. Another record another farmer killed one that had spikes on its tail. And still more of sightings, and this is just England. In other very remote places, sightings continue up to this day. Are all dinosaurs extinct? Have they become very few because humans killed them off and loss of habitat?

Is there any need to postulate a gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2? Is there any linguistic reason to say that that gap must be there?

Karl W. Randolph.
I don't think there is a linguistic need for a gap between v1 and v2, but the text allows for that.
I reconcile the text with what I consider to be verifiable science.
Dinosaurs are a huge category of creatures, not just a species. There were dinosaurs as small as chickens. There were herbivores and carnivores. Yet now there are none. So God put 2 of each species of this huge category of creatures on the ark, and now there is not one left that can be verified? What other species have gone extinct? Not many, and most of those are just an adaption of a species that still lives.

Another reason for a time gap is that today we can see stars which are 13 billion light years away turn into super novas and burn up. We are seeing an event that happened 13 billion years ago.
Sincerely yours,
Steve Miller
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http://www.voiceInWilderness.info
Honesty is the best policy. - George Washington (1732-99)
kwrandolph
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Re: בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים

Post by kwrandolph »

SteveMiller wrote:
kwrandolph wrote:This comes to the question, what is the nature of light? Is it a separate creation? Or is it the byproduct of setting atoms into motion? From physics I learn that light is the result of nuclear motion.

The picture I get from reading Genesis 1:1–3 is that God created the earth, which initially was absolutely still, lifeless, in darkness, yet already had atoms of all kinds and molecular compounds. Then God set the completed earth into motion, and light is the result of motion.
So did God create light in v1 or v3?
Before verse 3 there was no light. The earth was absolutely still, not moving. We’re talking about 0° K. In verse 3 God didn’t “create” light, i.e. as a new creation, rather he had light come into being. Or in physics terms, God warmed up the earth and started the atoms jiggling, and as the atoms jiggled, light came forth.
SteveMiller wrote:
kwrandolph wrote:
SteveMiller wrote:All the dating methods have assumptions which may be wrong.
However we know for sure that dinosaurs covered the earth at one time. Now there are none. What happened to them? Why would God go to all the trouble to preserve them on Noah's ark only to let them go extinct shortly afterward? I don't think they were around at the time of Noah's ark. I think they existed between Gen 1:1 and 1:2.
What about the dinosaurs? When did they go extinct? Did they go extinct? Did people have interactions with them?

For example, what was the “grendel” that Beowulf killed? While that was in Denmark, and referencing to other histories is datable to about 500 AD, apparently that animal was widespread, for in Switzerland there’s a city named “Forest of the Grendels” — Grindelwald. The description fits the T-Rex. It also fits the burrunjur in some very wild areas in Australia.

What about other records in history? For example, in English records, there was one farmer who killed a “dragon” that had three horns on its head. Another record another farmer killed one that had spikes on its tail. And still more of sightings, and this is just England. In other very remote places, sightings continue up to this day. Are all dinosaurs extinct? Have they become very few because humans killed them off and loss of habitat?

Is there any need to postulate a gap between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2? Is there any linguistic reason to say that that gap must be there?

Karl W. Randolph.
I don't think there is a linguistic need for a gap between v1 and v2, but the text allows for that.
I reconcile the text with what I consider to be verifiable science.
What do you mean by “science”?

The science I was taught in state universities and in secular science textbooks unanimously limits science to the study of observable phenomena where the observations are repeatable, from which are derived hypotheses and theories and against which theories and hypotheses are tested. That definition limits science to the study of present, physical processes. The past is no longer observable, therefore cannot be studied by science. Science cannot study ideas like justice, aesthetics, love, mercy, etc. because these and similar concepts are not observable. Any theory that depends on unobservable “facts” by definition cannot be a scientific theory. That definition limits science able to discuss only a small window of total knowledge.

According to that definition, no dating method is scientific, because they are all based on unobservable presuppositions. Fossils are dug out of the ground, but we cannot observe how and when they were formed. People can guess, based on their religious choices and presuppositions, but those guesses by definition are not science.
SteveMiller wrote:Dinosaurs are a huge category of creatures, not just a species. There were dinosaurs as small as chickens. There were herbivores and carnivores. Yet now there are none.
Are there none? Or is it just that “scientists” don’t want their nice little bubble burst, a bubble that claims that there are none, therefore they don’t go out and look, don’t follow up on observations by natives? Nor even of westerners who claim to have seen them? (“Oh, they’re not scientists.” What sort of excuse is that?)

Fresh dinosaur tracks in wet mud have been recorded in the area around the Licouri Swamp in Africa, for centuries. Natives tell they prefer to stay in water, and which fruits they like to eat. Job 40:21–23. That’s just one example, there are others in other areas of the earth.
SteveMiller wrote:So God put 2 of each species of this huge category of creatures on the ark, and now there is not one left that can be verified? What other species have gone extinct? Not many, and most of those are just an adaption of a species that still lives.
Around 1900 in one area of Wales, the local farmers killed off scaled flying creatures, because they had too much a liking for the farmers’ chickens. They were reported to have sparkled like jewels when they flew. They were only about the size of large hawks.
SteveMiller wrote:Another reason for a time gap is that today we can see stars which are 13 billion light years away turn into super novas and burn up. We are seeing an event that happened 13 billion years ago.
How do the “scientists” know the distances and times? The times are no longer observable, and the distances merely guesses based on the guessed times.

I consider the linguistic study of Bible Hebrew a science, because we have the text before us. But you never see me speculating on “proto-Semitic” because it’s merely speculated, not observed.

And there’s no linguistic indication of a gap between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 that I know of.

Do you have a different definition for “science”?

Karl W. Randolph.
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