Re: After Their Kind (was Basilosaurus)

Bill Hamilton (hamilton@predator.cs.gmr.com)
Tue, 7 Jan 1997 13:02:56 -0500

I wrote

><<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.>>
>
Jim wrote

>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.
>
I hope Denis will say something on this one. I'm not a Hebrew reader and
all I have to go on is footnotes. Denis?

Bill Hamilton
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William E. Hamilton, Jr, Ph.D. | Staff Research Engineer
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