On Sat, 16 Dec 1995 23:25:48 -0700 (MST) you wrote:
[...]
DL>Now on to other examples of what I consider are ANE intellectual
>categories that were employed in DESCRIBING NATURE (keep these
>capitalized words in mind because you will see I will come back to them
>with regard to my definition of that elusive term 'science'):
>(1) Creation out of a dark watery chaos. You have heard me refer to this
>numerous times before on the reflector before. But the ANE mind just did
>not conceive of a creation out of nothing. This is not to say that they
>were not bright enough, because they certainly were. But there was not a
>long standing intellectual tradition at that point in the history of
>ideas and the idea of creatio ex nihilo had yet to emerge. Evidence from
>a Hebrew perspective is that there was no Hebrew word for our "matter."
>And before one can think about a creation out of nothing, the intellectual
>category of "matter" has to be part of one's intellectual furniture.
>
>Of course, there should be some reflectorites who should be taking me
>quickly to task. What about Col 1: 15 and Heb 11: 3 (and 2 Macc 7: 28
>for our Catholic friends)? Yes, those are indeed creatio ex nihilo
>passages of our Lord's creative activity. So how do we solve the very
>real contradiction in the Word of God. It is simply a function of
>recognizing that when "[i]n the past God spoke to our forefathers through
>the prophets at many times and in various ways" (Heb 1:1, NIV), the Holy
>Spirit inspired these prophets with His Word, but also respected their
>epistemological horizon. That is, yes and clearly the Scriptures is the
>Precious Word of the only God of heaven, but this message is carried in a
>clay vessel context. To use G.E. Ladd's helpful aphorism, "the Bible is
>the Word of God given in the words of men in history." _The New
>Testament and Criticism_ (1967), p. 12. [To anyone one wanting to read a
>terrific theological piece do consider Ladd's book--you will not be
>disappointed]
Sorry Denis, but it not as absolute as you indicate! Gerhard von Rad
says:
"It is correct to say that the verb bara', "create," contains the idea
both of complete effortlessness and creatio ex nihilo, since it is
never connected with any statement of the material. The hidden
grandeur of this statement is that God is the Lord of the world. But
not only in the sense that he subjected a pre-existing chaos to his
ordering will! It is amazing to see how sharply little Israel
demarcated herself from an apparently overpowering environment of
cosmological and theogonic myths. Here the subject is not a primeval
mystery of procreation from which the divinity arose, nor of a
"creative" struggle of mythically personified powers from which the
cosmos arose, but rather the one who is neither warrior nor
procreator, who alone is worthy of the predicate, Creator." (Von Rad,
G., "Genesis: A Commentary", Old Testament Library, SCM Press:
London, Revised Edition, 1972, p49)
and
"It would be false to say, however, that the idea of the creatio ex
nihilo was not present here at all (v. 1 stands with good reason
before v. 2!), but the actual concern of this entire report of
creation is to give prominence, form, and order to the creation out of
chaos (cf. the fundamental idea of "separating"). (Von Rad, p51)
Similarly, Eichrodt:
"The logical conclusion of thus deriving the world from the miracle of
creative act is creation ex nihilo. Now it is certainly fair to ask
whether the thought-form in which this expression is cast is not
specifically Western, and cannot therefore be assumed without more ado
in the thinking of the ancient East. It may be argued that even in
those Old Testament passages where an original watery chaos seems to
precede the creation of the universe nevertheless both theologically
and psychologically the whole manner in which the subject is treated
indicates that the real concern is the revelation of the absolute
omnipotence of God; and that in so far as nothing equal or comparable
to this power plays any part, the ultimate aim of the narrative is the
same as that of our own formula of creation ex nihilo."
(Eichrodt W., "Theology Of The Old Testament", Old Testament
Library, Westminster Press: Philadelphia, Vol. II, 1967, p101)
and
"Here then, without special emphasis, but all the more impressively
for the naturalness of the statement, we find the distinctive term for
God's wondrous creation, bara' - a verb which never occurs with the
accusative of the material used in the creative act1-used to describe
the origin of a major part of the primal Chaos. That the word of
divine command is mentioned in this context as the medium of creation
likewise serves to emphasize the peculiar independence of the Creator;
and the same is true of Ps. 33.6, 9, where the word is exalted as the
unique medium of power. When it is remembered that ancient thought
included annihilation and new creation among the direct effects of the
mighty word of the deity, it must be admitted that we are here not
very far from creation ex nihilo - a development to which ancient
magical ideas may have contributed." (Eichrodt, 1967, p102-103)
DL>(2) Creation is not at the absolute beginning of time. This is
>closely related to my previous point. The proper English translation
>of Gen 1: 1 is "When God began to create . . .", not "In the
>beginning God created . .. ." And modern translations are now
>beginning to reflect this exegetical subtlety. It is interesting to
>note that the LXX, which is subsequent to the Ionian (Greek)
>intellectual revolution, translates Gen 1:1 as "In the beginnng . ..
>.", (en arche), thus reflecting the notion of absolute beginning.
>But remember the LXX translators were steeped in Hellenistic
>intellectual categories. The same occurs with all our English
>translations up to the last twenty or so years, and again this is
>attributable to our Western epistemology imposing its categories on
>an ancient text--clearly a prime example of eisegesis.
Again, this is asserting too much! The LXX translators may have
been Greek speaking Alexandrian Jews, but they were still
Jews! The instroduction to my Septuagint says:
"In estimating the general character of the version, it must be
remembered that the translators were Jews, full of traditional
thoughts of their own as to the meaning of the scripture..."
(Introduction, "The Septuagint Version", Samuel Bagster & Sons). It
should also be remembered that the Palestinian Jew, John used the
LXX's "En arche epoiesen ho Theos..." ("In the beginning God
created..."), as the basis for his "In the beginning was the Word" (Jn
1:1). It is also noteworthy that another Palestinian Jew, Jesus of
Nazareth (and/or his Palestinian Jew translator Matthew) used the
LXX's words "the beginning" (arches) to refer to Genesis 1 (Mt 19:4).
But it was not just the LXX translators who understood Gn 1:1
as "In the beginning....". The Masorettes understood it that
way too! Buswell II states:
"Dr. Edward J. Young (Westminster Theological Journal, May 1959,
p146) cogently presents the data and proves to my complete
satisfaction that the traditional translation is correct. A few of
his points are:
(1) The Masoretic text, which points the preposition with a shewah,
also accents the word with a tiphcha, showing that the Masorites
considered the word as in the absolute state
(2) All the ancient versions without exception translate the word as
an absolute. The LXX says, En arche epoiesen ho Theos.... Clearly
John had this verse of Genesis in mind when he wrote, En arche en ho
Logos.... The Vulgate reads, In principio creavit Deus...."
(Buswell J.O. Jr., "A Systematic Theology of the Christian Religion",
Zondervan: Grand Rapids MI, 1962, p149).
Eichrodt, at the conclusion of a monograph on "In the Beginning. A
Contribution to the Interpretation of the First Word of the Bible",
sums up:
"It should now be clear that each reflection on the beginning of
creation exercises in its place an important function in the total
view of the respective writer. If we understand beresit in Gen. 1:1
as absolute, this is not an arbitrary judgment but is closely
connected with the most important concern of the priestly conception
of history. A relative interpretation of the expression would place
an emphasis on the autonomy of the chaotic matter at the beginning of
creation contrary to the whole concern of this creation story. The
narrator is moved to reflection not by that which preceded the divine
creation but by the fact that nothing but the autonomous decree of the
transcendent God determined the form of creation. That the creatio ex
nihilo thereby enters the picture is incontestable; indeed, other
concepts in the priestly creation story, which we cannot examine in
this connection, 14 point in this same direction. It is enough that
the translation of the first sentence of the Bible, "In the beginning
God created the heavens and the earth," proves to be the truly
pertinent one, not only from the aesthetic-stylistic point of view but
also from that of linguistic and intellectual history." (Eichrodt W.,
"In the Beginning", in Anderson B.W., Ed., "Creation in the Old
Testament: Issues in Religion and Theology No. 6", SPCK: London,
1984, pp72-73)
DL>Moreover, the debate regard the first word of the Bible 'bereshit'
>clearly testifies to the Hebrew grammatical construct state (ie,
>'When God began ') and not to the absolute state (ie, 'In the
>beginning). [I acutally have a 60 page defense of this position I
>hope to soon finish and publish in an Old Testament journal, if only
>I can finish this current PhD on frog teeth and evolution]. As hard
>as it might seem to believe, our English translations have betrayed
>the autographs.
Yes it is indeed "hard...to believe" Denis! :-) This is not a new
issue and there is no question that any 1st year OT student would be
aware of it, let alone Professors of Hebrew who translate Bibles! I
would be more inclined to believe that the Hebrew scholars who
translated my AV, RSV, NIV, Berkeley and Green's translations as "In
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth", knew exactly
what they were doing and were trying to be as faithful to the original
text as far as humanly possible!
It is possible that bereshith in Gn 1:1 is in the construct, not
absolute, state, but this is all it is - possible! It is by no means
as certain as you make out, and there are formidable arguments against
it, that IMHO are decisive.
Buswell continues with his summary of Young's defence of the
traditional absolute state of bereshith:
"3) The Hebrew words which follow are not in the form which would
naturally follow a construct."
(Young E.J., p146 in Buswell, p150)
Kidner also:
"Grammatically, this phrase could be translated as introducing a
clause completed in verse 3 after a parenthetical verse 2: 'When God
began to create...(the earth was without form...), God said, Let there
be light...'. This would not be saying that the undeveloped earth was
not of God's making; only that creation, in its full sense, still had
far to go. But the familiar translation, 'In the beginning God...',
is equally grammatical, is supported by all the ancient versions, and
affirms unequivocally the truth laid down elsewhere (e.g., Heb. 11:3)
that until God spoke, nothing existed." (Kidner D., "Genesis: An
Introduction and Commentary" Tyndale Press: London, 1967, p43)
Ellison, a Christian Jew, points out:
"The translation offered by NEB, GNB, RSVmg, Speiser and many moderns
goes back to mediaeval Jewish commentators and is grammatically
possible. It is, however, most unlikely that a chapter written in the
lapidary style of Gen. 1 would start with such an involved
sentence...It has been argued by men of very different outlooks that
we cannot conceive of the creation of chaos-'formless and
empty'-appeal being often made to Isa. 45:18. Many have used this
argument to justify translating, 'and the earth became without form
and void', cf. NIVmg, thus implying the destruction of the original
creation, but this rendering flies in the face of Heb. syntax."
(H.L. Ellison, "Genesis", Bruce F.F., Ed., "The International Bible
Commentary", Marshall Pickering/Zondervan: Grand Rapids MI, Second
Edition, 1986, p114).
IMHO you claim to much, in order to bolster your evolutionary
reconstruction. Eichrodt points out that:
"At the same time others, dealing with the exegetical difficulties
in v. 2 in a variety of ways, held to the view that the first sentence
of the Bible constitutes a fundamental statement of the activity of
God the Creator who called all things into being-an interpretation
already attested in the Greek translation. It was acknowledged on
all sides that the one translation was as defensible philologically and
grammatically as the other. Reasons for the preference of one or
the other interpretation of the text stemmed more from the history
of religions or from theology..." (Eichrodt, 1984, p65-66)
Buswell sums it up more bluntly:
"Those who choose to take the word as in the construct state
generally translate the sentence so as to get rid of the doctrine
of creation ex nihilo." (Buswell, p148).
Happy Christmas!
Stephen
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