Re: After Their Kind (was Basilosaurus)

Jim Bell (70672.1241@CompuServe.COM)
07 Jan 97 12:35:47 EST

Bill Hamilton writes:

<<In the New American Standard Bible a footnote to Genesis 1:24 says that the
word translated "their" is literally "its" (two instances). If you put
"its" into the text instead of "their" you get

Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures after its kind:
cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after its kind"; and it
was so.

It looks to me as though the antecedent of "its" is the earth. If this is
correct it's saying that all the life forms created in Gen 1:24 are of the
same kind as the earth. If this is a reasonable interpretation, one might
ask "what is the earth's kind?" The answer might be something like: made
of matter.>>

I'm not sure. In v. 24a, we have "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the
living creature after his kind..." Isn't the antecedent "creature" here?

In 24b, wouldn't it be the same thing, both by context and by grammar?

Denis, maybe you could help on this one.

Jim