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b-greek-digest V1 #112
b-greek-digest Monday, 12 February 1996 Volume 01 : Number 112
In this issue:
Re: Something from Nothing
re: Romans 1:17
RE: Wis of Solomon 7
Re: Something from Nothing
re: Romans 1:17
creation from nothing
creation from nothing
Re: Something from Nothing
----------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu>
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 1996 06:14:22 -0600
Subject: Re: Something from Nothing
On 2/10/96, Will Wagers wrote:
> David M. Schaps wrote about Gn 1 in "Re: Accuracy in Translation":
>
> "It misses the fact that the three first letters of the first word are
> themselves the second word. It misses the distinction between the
> verb actually used, "bara" ("created") and the more common verb
> "asa" ("made") -- the difference usually being explained as being
> one between making something out of nothing (bara) and something
> out of something else (asa)."
>
> It is my impression that the ancients, and particularly the Greeks,
> didn't think anything came from nothing, i.e. no creation ex nihilo.
> In Genesis for example, the wind and the waters, at least, seem to
> pre-exist the creation. Many ancient creation myths seem to create
> the cosmos from the body of a god, as Marduk from Tiamat.
>
> Is this supposed use of bara to mean creation from nothing limited
> to divine contexts ?
>
> Does anyone have textual references supporting or contradicting the
> notion of creation from nothing in ancient Hebrew (or other Middle
> Eastern) sources ?
>
> Is it Christian thought that Jesus created the world from nothing ?
> (Jn 1:1) If so, what would be the textual evidence for this position?
With regard to Genesis 1, an alternative understanding I've seen in at
least one serious discussion (E.A. Speiser's Anchor Bible Commentary on
Genesis) takes the initial B'RESHITH BARA ... verse to mean something like,
"At the beginning of God's creating the heaven and the earth, ..." and then
understanding TOHU W/BOHU as a primeval chaos that is the raw material
transformed by the creative action into a cosmos. Of course, the second
creation narrative beginning at Genesis 2:4b makes no assumption whatsoever
of a creatio ex nihilo; it is a nomadic herdsman's myth of the planting of
an oasis in the desert, whereas the Genesis 1 myth is rather apparently an
agricultural myth of the emergence of dry land from water.
Of course, that has nothing to do with b-greek, but the second part of your
question does. I would think that the clearest suggestion of a creatio ex
nihilo in the NT might be Romans 4:17: KATENANTI hOU QEOU EPISTEUSEN TOU
ZWOPOIOUNTOS TOUS NEKROUS KAI KALOUNTOS TA MH ONTA hWS ONTA. I've always
understood this to mean that Abraham put his trust in the God who is both
redeemer and creator, who makes the dead alive and calls into being things
that do not have being.
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/
------------------------------
From: "Edgar M. Krentz" <emkrentz@mcs>
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 1996 09:59:02 -0600
Subject: re: Romans 1:17
You wrote:
>I think this raises a very important point, not just about this text but
>many NT texts. It seems as though we must do exegesis BEFORE we can translate
>when it comes to many prepositions, which I am very uncomfortable with, since
>I assume that Paul's original hearers/readers just "heard" EK and EIS and knew
>what they most probably meant. How can we go about deriving a translation
>without having to do exegesis firsxt? To use a very different passage,
>1 Cor 11:10, the understanding of EPI THS KEFALHS depends exegesis. You have to
>decide what Paul is saying before you can translate (or in case of
>virtually all
>modern translation, maul) this phrase. If anyone has suggestions for how to
>get around this type of problem, I'd like to hear them.
I am not sure this is a problem at all. The native speaker also interprets
[i.e., does exegesis] of what she or he reads or hears. There is no
translation without interpretation, no understanding without
interpretation, even of this posting. The problem is made more difficult
when we read something in a foreign tongue or an ancient one.
To say in German "Er ist ziemlich blau" is perfectly clear to a German, but
obscure to an American, since the connotations of blau/blue are different.
An American translating literally understands that the subject is a bit
depressed, while a German knows youi mean he is inebriated [to use a
euphemism].
You cannot get around the problem because it is impossible.
Edgar Krentz, New Testament
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
1100 EAST 55TH STREET
CHICAGO, IL 60615
Tel: 3112-256-0752; (H) 312-947-8105
------------------------------
From: "Edgar M. Krentz" <emkrentz@mcs>
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 1996 09:59:06 -0600
Subject: RE: Wis of Solomon 7
Jim Stamper gave us a good contribution ;to the discussion of the
canonicity of the apocryphal books in protestantis; I want to make a couple
of additions.
>
>My recollection is that there hasn't been a formal, systematic "rejection"
>in Protestant denominations.
I believe that there has been a formal rejection of the apocryphal
[deutero-canonical books] books of the OT by the Zurich Confession of 1545,
the Confessio Belgica of 1561, the second Helvetic Confession of 1562, the
Synod of Dordrecht of 1618-19 [Dort], and the 1647 Westminster Confession.
Luther translated them, but gathered them in a section between the OT and
NT [thus adopting a mediating position on their authority]. Although the
Council of Trent expressly affirmed the deutero-canonical books in the 4th
session, 8 April 1545, Lutherans have never formally adopted a canon--one
reason, inter alia, why Peter Stuhlmacher speaks of the larger canon of the
OT as the hermeneuticala context for NT interpretation.
>The Anglican Articles of Religion of 1553
>which were generally consistent with the Reformation theology of the
>Continent said:
>
>"And the other Books (as Hierome [Jerome] saith) the Church doth read for
>example of life and instruction of manners; but yet doth it not apply them
>to establish any doctrine; such are these following":
>
>and it goes on to list what we call the Apocrypha, including WS.
>
>As I remember, in the missionary explosion of the 19th Century, the British
>and Foreign Bible Society started printing the AV [KJV] without the
>Aprocrypha to save money and printers in USA followed suit. An economic
>rather than a theological decision. As a consequence over time a lot of
>people acquired Bibles without the Apocrypha.
>
>In my travels, whenever I can, I try to look in churches at their old
>lectern Bibles. My impression has been that most of the real antiques
>include these books regardless of the denomination where they were located.
>Don't know if the Apocrypha was read on Sundays or not and admit this is
>very unscientific survey.
>
>Authorized Roman Catholic translations, of course, included the Apocrypha.
>As a child in **very** Protestant surroundings I was taught our Bible didn't
>include them because they were "Catholic." The Anglicans/Episcopalians have
>always included them, but not very much, in their lectionaries.
The best book I know on the whole matter is:
Siegfried Meurer, ed. *The Apocrypha in Ecumenical Perspective. The place
of the late writings of the Old Testament among the bibical writings and
their significance in the easter and western churches.* UBS Monograph
Series, No. 6. Reading, UK; New York: United Bible Societies, 11991. ISBN
0-82267-0456-5.
It has articles by well informed scholars. For the discussion that has been
going on here one should read the article by Peter Stuhlmacher, "The
Significance of the Old Testament Aapocrypha and Pseudepigrapha for the
Understandinga of Jesus and aChristoogy.," pp. 1-15.
The wider question underlying this discussion is the hermeneutical one: How
does one appropriate extra-canonical materials for understanding the books
of the canonical scriptures? But that issue goes beyond this discussion
group's area of concern, I think.
Edgar Krentz, New Testament
Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago
1100 EAST 55TH STREET
CHICAGO, IL 60615
Tel: 3112-256-0752; (H) 312-947-8105
------------------------------
From: Nathan MacDonald <nm10011@hermes.cam.ac.uk>
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 1996 21:03:21 +0000 (GMT)
Subject: Re: Something from Nothing
Dear Will
The NRSV translates Gen 1:1 "In the beginning when God created the
heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void...." with footnotes for
"when God began to create..." or "In the beginning God created..."
There is discussion amongst Old Testament scholars about whether v.2 is a
subordinate clause of v.1 (See e.g. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, Word)
Moving a bit closer to our New Testament home an interesting verse with
regards to Creation Ex Nihilo might be 2 Macc 7:28 "I beg you, my child,
to look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them, and
recognise that God did not make them out of things that existed." (NRSV)
yours
Nathan MacDonald
Emmanuel College
Cambridge
UK
BA Theology
------------------------------
From: Will Wagers <wagers@computek.net>
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 1996 18:34:47 -0600
Subject: re: Romans 1:17
Kenneth Litwak writes:
>>It seems as though we must do exegesis BEFORE we can translate
>>when it comes to many prepositions, which I am very uncomfortable with, since
>>I assume that Paul's original hearers/readers just "heard" EK and EIS and knew
>>what they most probably meant. How can we go about deriving a translation
>>without having to do exegesis firsxt? To use a very different passage,
>>1 Cor 11:10, the understanding of EPI THS KEFALHS depends exegesis. You
>>have to
>>decide what Paul is saying before you can translate (or in case of
>>virtually all modern translation, maul) this phrase. If anyone has
>>suggestions for how to
>>get around this type of problem, I'd like to hear them.
I am not qualified to argue my opinion, but, the problem is that the minds
which were physically conditioned to those times are gone and cannot be
reconstructed, thus we substitute an exegetic context, an artificial "mind",
a paradigm through which to interpret between their mindset and our own.
Consequently, for me, the greatest asset for translation is a sympathetic mind,
one which reverberates naturally to the same "chords" as the ancient
ones (possibly making one a living anachronism). Once one has translated
enough, one's exegesis becomes embodied in the very structure of the mind,
and, - right or wrong - one is stuck with it. The greater comfort one feels
with greater experience is misleading in that one is merely internalizing the
exegetic process, thus experiencing less tension as the exegesis becomes
more automatic, rather than more accurate or true. (Remember the old joke
with the punchline: "Oh, Will looks terrible! Yeah, but doesn't his suit look
great!")
All our brave, intelligent attempts to verify our interpretations by various
means are, in fact, useless in approximating ancient thought because of the
way the mind is created from the interaction of brain and environment. There
is no workaround for the problem, because there is no objective standard
by which to evaluate one's interpretations (translations). And, no matter
what we do, we are manipulating symbols rather than experiencing them.
A biological corollary of all this is that humans were not intended to live by
standards from thousands of years ago unless the environment remains
unchanged. The ancient texts represent specific cultural adaptations to an
ancient reality. This reality having passed, it is maladaptive to try to live by
them. Think of the sea turtles, who in trying to reach the beach where they
were born to lay their own eggs, now must travel thousands of miles through
increasingly dangerous waters to what was originally a safe and convenient
beach.
So, the bad news is that one can never know what they truly meant: the
good news is that with sufficient practice, one ceases to realize this. (This
is why experienced translators can be so amused by the struggles of
the inexperienced.)
Sincerely,
Will
------------------------------
From: Walter Wagner <wagner@dns.enter.net>
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 1996 21:38:30 4
Subject: creation from nothing
Re the discussion on creatio ex nihilo and Romans. It may be helpful
to note 2 Maccabees 7:28f. The mother of the seven sons who are being
tortured and executed for refusing to abjure Judaism addressed the
youngest "My son, have pity on me. ... I beseech you, my child, to
look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them,
and recognize that God did not make them out of things that
existed..." oti ouk ex ontwn epoiesen auta ho Theos.
Could this indicate that the idea of a creation from nothing was
being voiced? In addition, the LXX for Genesis 1:1 is En arche
epoiesen ho Theos... I have understood poiew in terms of shaping,
making something out of what was already there in an unformed manner.
Would Paul have been more apt to reflect the LXX?
Walt Wagner
wagner@enter.net
------------------------------
From: Walter Wagner <wagner@dns.enter.net>
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 1996 21:38:30 4
Subject: creation from nothing
Re the discussion on creatio ex nihilo and Romans. It may be helpful
to note 2 Maccabees 7:28f. The mother of the seven sons who are being
tortured and executed for refusing to abjure Judaism addressed the
youngest "My son, have pity on me. ... I beseech you, my child, to
look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them,
and recognize that God did not make them out of things that
existed..." oti ouk ex ontwn epoiesen auta ho Theos.
Could this indicate that the idea of a creation from nothing was
being voiced? In addition, the LXX for Genesis 1:1 is En arche
epoiesen ho Theos... I have understood poiew in terms of shaping,
making something out of what was already there in an unformed manner.
Would Paul have been more apt to reflect the LXX?
Walt Wagner
wagner@enter.net
------------------------------
From: David Moore <dvdmoore@dcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us>
Date: Sun, 11 Feb 1996 22:34:17 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: Something from Nothing
Subject: Re: Something from Nothing
Cc: b-greek@virginia.edu
"Carl W. Conrad" <cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu> quoted and wrote:
>On 2/10/96, Will Wagers wrote:
>> David M. Schaps wrote about Gn 1 in "Re: Accuracy in Translation":
>>
>> "It misses the fact that the three first letters of the first word are
>> themselves the second word. It misses the distinction between the
>> verb actually used, "bara" ("created") and the more common verb
>> "asa" ("made") -- the difference usually being explained as being
>> one between making something out of nothing (bara) and something
>> out of something else (asa)."
>>
>> It is my impression that the ancients, and particularly the Greeks,
>> didn't think anything came from nothing, i.e. no creation ex nihilo.
>> In Genesis for example, the wind and the waters, at least, seem to
>> pre-exist the creation. Many ancient creation myths seem to create
>> the cosmos from the body of a god, as Marduk from Tiamat.
>>
>> Is this supposed use of bara to mean creation from nothing limited
>> to divine contexts ?
>>
>> Does anyone have textual references supporting or contradicting the
>> notion of creation from nothing in ancient Hebrew (or other Middle
>> Eastern) sources ?
>>
>> Is it Christian thought that Jesus created the world from nothing ?
>> (Jn 1:1) If so, what would be the textual evidence for this position?
>
>With regard to Genesis 1, an alternative understanding I've seen in at
>least one serious discussion (E.A. Speiser's Anchor Bible Commentary on
>Genesis) takes the initial B'RESHITH BARA ... verse to mean something like,
>"At the beginning of God's creating the heaven and the earth, ..." and then
>understanding TOHU W/BOHU as a primeval chaos that is the raw material
>transformed by the creative action into a cosmos. Of course, the second
>creation narrative beginning at Genesis 2:4b makes no assumption whatsoever
>of a creatio ex nihilo; it is a nomadic herdsman's myth of the planting of
>an oasis in the desert, whereas the Genesis 1 myth is rather apparently an
>agricultural myth of the emergence of dry land from water.
>
>Of course, that has nothing to do with b-greek, but the second part of your
>question does. I would think that the clearest suggestion of a creatio ex
>nihilo in the NT might be Romans 4:17: KATENANTI hOU QEOU EPISTEUSEN TOU
>ZWOPOIOUNTOS TOUS NEKROUS KAI KALOUNTOS TA MH ONTA hWS ONTA. I've always
>understood this to mean that Abraham put his trust in the God who is both
>redeemer and creator, who makes the dead alive and calls into being things
>that do not have being.
Carl's comment on Gen. 1:1 brought to mind a conversation on
b-hebrew from December of 1994 and especially a post by Joe Abrahmson
which seems to effectively answer the objections to the translation "In
the beginning..." for Gen. 1:1.
To justify this as a b-greek post, I'll also add that both the LXX
and John 1:1 - if the latter is an echo of Gen. 1:1 as most commentators
think - also support the translation "In the beginning..."
All the best,
David Moore
*************************************************************************************************
Quoted material follows:
Subj: Gn1:1
Date: 94-12-01 12:57:16 EST
From: joe.abrahamson@mwbbs.com
To: B-Hebrew@virginia.edu
From: joe.abrahamson@mwbbs.com (Joe Abrahamson)
Reply-to: joe.abrahamson@mwbbs.com (Joe Abrahamson)
To: B-Hebrew@virginia.edu
Stephen,
On Wed, 30 Nov 1994, Stephen Carlson wrote:
> Genesis 1:1
> b:re'$iyt bara' ':elohiym ...
> In the beginning God created ... (KJV)
> Genesis 1:1 is quite known, but quite a few sources I've read say that
> the usual translations (KJV, LXX et al.) are incorrect, because "bara'
> ':elohiym" sets up a relative clause.
> What is going on here? What is the proper syntactical rule? Does it
> have to do with Hebrew;'s VSO word order? Which of the following
> translations best render the sense of the original?
> In the beginning when God created ... In the beginning of God's
> creating ... When God began creating ...
I would like to offer a tentative explanation in a slightly different vein
than the others on the board have so far.
Alviero Niccacci has noted that introductory temporal clauses which describe
the background information for a narrative episode typically begin with a
propositional adverb (Gn 7:11; 1 Kn 15:1; 2 Chr 13:1; Is 6:1; Is 14:28; cf
Niccacci 1990:60-62).
Moreover, if you notice, the prepositions for these temporal clauses are
typically unarticulated.
We have two other narratives which begin with b:re'$iyt . These are in
Jeremiah at 26:1 and 27:1. In both of these passages we have the temporal
phrase begining with b:re'$iyt and continuing with a Qal Suffix Conjugation
verb (hyh) phrase to expand upon that background material.
In Gen 1 as well as Jer 27 & 27 the narrative soon follows with a waw-
consecutive Prefix Conjugation verb.
In each of these cases the backgound material is initiated by b:re'$iyt
which is twice followed by a non verbal specification (Jer) and once without
(Gn). All of them are then followed by a Suffix Conjugation verbs in Qal
which specify the time indicated by b:re'$iyt. After the temporal/locational
background material is sufficient for the narrative, the narrative follows
with a waw-consecutive Prefix Conjugation.
The texts of Jer 26 and 27 use their b:re'$iyt formulae to refer to a greater
framework of time measuring, but both indicate the time at the beginning of
which the ensuing narrative took place.
Gen 1 does not, by its implication, have a greater framework of time
measurment to which it may refer. The writer is implying an absolute
beginning and would therefore have no object to use for b:re'$iyt as Jer 26
and 27 do. But the writer can use background events to help frame the time of
the ensuing narrative as Jer 26 & 27, so the Suffix Conjugation Qal is used.
Some works on Hebrew grammar at levels greater than that of one or two
sentences might help on issues like this. Try these:
Bandstra, Barry L.
1992 "Word Order and Emphasis in Biblical Hebrew Narrative: Syntactic
Observations on
Genesis 22 from a Discourse Perspective." In Bodine 1992a:
109-123.
[A very enlightening corrective to much of the discussion about the
notion of emphasis and the position of words in the Hebrew sentence."
Bodine, Walter R.
1992a (editor of) _Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew._ Eisenbrauns, Winona
Lake, Indiana.
1992b "How Linguists Study Syntax." In Bodine 1992a:89-107.
[A fairly good introduction to some of the fields of linguistics as
applied to the Hebrew text. His article gives a good overview of the history
of linguistic syntactical studies which provides a nice background for all
syntactic study of Hebrew.]
Longacre, Robert E.
1983 _The Grammar of Discourse._ Plenum, New York.
1989 _Joseph: A Story of Divine Providence: A Text Theoretical and
Textlinguistic Analysis
of Genesis 37 and 39-48._ Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake,
Indiana.
1992 "Discourse Perspective on the Hebrew Verb: Affirmation and
Restatement." in Bodine
1992a: 177-189.
[Longacre brings a wealth of experimental field linguistics to bear
upon the Hebrew Text. Unfortunately, his encyclopaedic approach in his
_Joseph_ is a bit overwhelming. Read his 1992 article first for a good, brief
introduction.]
Niccacci, Alviero
1987 "A Neglected Point of Hebrew Syntax: Yiqtol and Position in the
Sentence." _Liber
Anuus Studii Biblici Franciscani 37:7-19.
1989 "An Outline of the Biblical Hebrew Verbal System in Prose."
_Liber Anuus Studii
Biblici Franciscani 39:7-26.
1990 _The Syntax of the Verb in Classical Hebrew Prose._ Number 86 of
the Journal for
the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series.
Sheffield Academic Press,
Worcester, England. Translated by W.G.E. Watson, form
the original _sintassi del
verbo ebraico nella prosa biblica classica._ (Jerusalem:
Franciscan Printing Press,
1986)
[Niccacci's work is very interesting, though I feel he neglects
some of the significance of wayyihi constructions which Longacre highlights
in his scheme (also in this bib.). The 1990 translation of his _Syntax_ has a
number of consistancy problems and style problems, as well as misdirected
footnotes, but altogether it is a fairly well presented work. One should
probably read his papers before this book]
Talstra, E.
1978 "Text Grammar and Hebrew Bible. I: Elements of a Theory." _Biblica
et Orientalia
35:169-174, Pontifico Istituto Biblico, Roma.
1982 "Text Grammar and Hebrew Bible. II: Syntax and Semantics." _Biblica
et Orientalia
39:26-38, Pontifico Istituto Biblico, Roma.
[Talstra takes Wofgang Schneider's _Grammatik des biblischen Hebraish
(Claudius Verlag, Munich) as a starting point and refines some aspects of
macrosyntactic analysis (syntactic analysis of larger portions of text than
the sentence).]
These are all specifically directed at the study of the Hebrew text, but a
general introduction to discourse analysis is also helpful. I enjoyed:
Brown, Gillian & George Yule
1983 _Discourse Analysis._ Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
I hope this bibliography helps. And I also hope for feedback on the B-Hebrew
list regarding the viability of my analysis.
At your service,
Joe Abrahamson
**************************************************************************************
Above quoted material sent by:
David L. Moore Southeastern Spanish District
Miami, Florida of the Assemblies of God
dvdmoore@dcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us Department of Education
http://members.aol.com/dvdmoore
------------------------------
End of b-greek-digest V1 #112
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