From: Carl W. Conrad (cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu)
Date: Wed Feb 21 1996 - 13:52:26 EST
This came to me alone but was meant, I think, for the whole list.
>Date: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 13:03:39 -0500
>From: SOMCMAN@aol.com
>To: cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu
>Subject: Re: Summary: Something from Nothing (longish)
>Status:
>
>In a message dated 96-02-20 16:59:03 EST, you write:
>
>>> What we would really need to get at the biblical view on this
>>> matter is a good exegesis of Gen. 1:1. Maybe someone can get that going
>>> on b-hebrew.
>>
>>I'm not sure this would really settle matters, as there are sufficient
>>grounds for understanding the text of Genesis 1:1 in terms of a
>>pre-existent chaos or "matter" (TOHU W'BOHU) shaped by the creator into a
>>cosmos. The question Will raises is really (I think?) WHEN the doctrine of
>>CREATIO EX NIHILO really emerges and whether it is in fact implicit in NT
>>texts.
>
>Actually, the subject of the phraseology of Gn 1.1 has mystified me until I
>discovered
>parallel phraseology of the Hebrew text in Gn 2.1 to also indicated a gap of
>time where a condition occurred and then ceased to exist until divine
>intervention once again
>rectified the situation. Also not the intentional commentary to clarify the
>situation from any suppositions that might arise from previous statements
>made in Gn1.1a and 2.1a by use of retroactive exposition in the following
>verse of both chapters. This phraseology is not merely scribal intervention.
> No scribe ever possessed those literary powers.
>
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/
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