Tue Oct 29 13:08:40 1996
From owner-tc-list Tue Oct 29 13:08:40 1996
Return-Path:
Received: by scholar.cc.emory.edu (SMI-8.6/SMI-SVR4)
id NAA07727; Tue, 29 Oct 1996 13:07:15 -0500
From: PGardella@aol.com
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 1996 13:03:30 -0500
Message-ID: <961029130329_1582577912@emout16.mail.aol.com>
To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu
Subject: Re: Fw: Hebrew wording of Day 4
Sender: owner-tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu
Precedence: bulk
Reply-To: tc-list@scholar.cc.emory.edu
content-length: 4249
Greetings all!
I am a student at Asbury Theological Seminary and have been reading the
list for a while to see where Textual Criticism is and where it is
headed. Having recently completed a study of the Pentateuch, and having
read Sailhamer, I thought I would respond to Jim and Dave's posts.
Please note, I am not a Hebrew scholar, and I do not know Hebrew, so the
opinions I express are not original (to an even greater extent than
Dave's disclaimer!). I intend to provide background information on
Sailhamer's arguement. Much is left out here for the sake of space. I
found the book to be thought provoking and challenging. I to am
interested in what other's have to say about his hypothesis.
Sailhamer is arguing that the Genesis 1 account of creation is a
preparation of the (Promised) Land for the people of Israel. Since the
Pentateuch is the story of the nation of Israel, these creation naratives
are dealing with the creation of the nation, and not of the world in
general. The "heavens and the earth" in Gen 1:1 is a merism refering to
the "universe" or "cosmos", which includes the sun, moon and stars.
Day 2 was a division of the waters into the waters on the earth and
clouds. He bases this on his translation of RAIQA in Genesis 1 as
refering to clouds (as does Prov 8:28, Ps 104:3). To quote, " On the
second day God prepared the sky with clouds to provide rain for the land.
The rain would prepare the land for producing vegetation on the next
day." Again, he is focusing on the preparation of the Land for the his
people.
Comparing the syntax of verse 6, he argues they are similar but "don't
have the same meaning", as Dave has done. He translates WAYA to "to set
aright", "to fix", "to set in order". The emphasis he is showing is "to
separate the night from the day". He assumes the lights to be already in
place (noting the lack of the article with 'or here in 14) and the action
on this day is to organize them (my words). He notes the difference
between the syntax of verse 6 (HYH alone) and of verse 14 (HYH and
infinitive)
So to answer Dave's conclusion, Sailhamer does assume the expanse in the
second day does exist, and that it was separated for a specific purpose
(to prepare the land).
Patrick Gardella
PGardella@aol.com
FYI, "Genesis Unbound" is published by Multnomah Books (Sisters, Oregon:
1996) ISBN 0-88070-868-9
>Hmm...well, let's compare the wording with another day, like the
>second. The fourth day, v.14, begins "And God said, let there be..."
>"Let there be" is YHY, the same term used in v.3 "Let there be light"
>and in v.6, "Let there be an expanse." The expanse is "to divide,"
>LeHABDIL; this same term is used for the "lights" on the fourth day.
>The creation of the expanse continues with WAYA(A$, "and He made";
>the same term continues the creation of the sun and moon in v.16.
>V.7 adds "And it was so," a phrase missing in the 4th day but
>essentially meaningless wrt Sailhamer's suggestion. Both
>descriptions end with "And God saw that it was good."
>
>Conclusion: if the 4th day means, not that these items were created
>that day but that they already existed and were appointed for
>specific purposes, then we have to conclude the same about the
>expanse on the second day. IOW, Sailhamer is wrong.
>> TCers--I just recieved this from a Genesis listserv, and would like to
get
>> your
>> help on the wording in Genesis 1. Any help? Thanks and God bless,
>> Jim
>> > I just listened to a tape called "Genesis Unbound" by a Dr. John
>> Sailhamer,
>> > who is a Hebrew scholar who claims that the Hebrew wording of Day 4 of
>> the
>> > Genesis account seems to indicate that the sun, moon, and stars were
>> > appointed to be lights to govern the seasons, and that the English
>> > translation skews it to mean that these bodies were created on that day.
>> > Does anyone know Hebrew well enough to verify or refute this claim? He
>> also
>> > holds to a modified gap, where Genesis 1:1 refers to an ancient
creation.
>> > This interpretation would make the age of the universe irrelevant to
>> belief
>> > in the inerrancy of scriptures.
Back