From: Stevens, Charles C (Charles.Stevens@unisys.com)
Date: Wed Feb 11 1998 - 16:21:22 EST
At 12:42PM on Feb 11, 1998, Mark Joseph comments:
<< ... as the *Hebrew* of Gen. 1:1 (regardless of the possible meanings
of the Greek phrase EN ARCHi, which is best seen as a literalistic
translation of the Hebrew B:Re'SHiYT) refers to an absolute beginning,
the possible translations "In the beginning of God's creating" and "At
the beginning, when God began to create" having been convincingly
refuted.>>
I have not seen a refutation of these translations of "BR'ShYT BR'
'LHYM ...", nor would I expect there to be one *in B-Greek*. .
In fact, what I have seen is a refutation of the LXX "EN ARXH EPOIHSEN
hO QEOS ..." as being a *likely* translation of the Hebrew ("The New
Jerome Biblical Commentary" article on Genesis; I forget the author of
the article).
Thus, I have three qualms about the propriety of these statements:
I wonder about the propriety in this particular forum of describing a
given translation of this Hebrew text as "having been convincingly
refuted" without citing those refutations.
I wonder about discussing the validity of a given translation of
*Hebrew* text in this forum, which is intended not for discussions of
*Hebrew* grammar and semantics, but of *Koine Greek* grammar and
semantics.
And I wonder whether such flat statements might have a tendency to be
regarded as dismissive of the theological perspectives of those who do
not agree that the only appropriate literal translation of Gen 1:1 is
the traditionally-accepted one that is reflected in the LXX.
-Chuck Stevens [SMTP: Charles.Stevens@unisys.com]
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Sat Apr 20 2002 - 15:39:03 EDT