Talk:Genesis 1:1

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Votes for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on May 26, 2005. The result of the discussion was keep.

Mindspillage (spill yours?) 05:16, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] From Category talk:Hebrew Bible verses: How might we consistently arrange this category?

See Category talk:Hebrew Bible verses as the notes below relate to here first. IZAK 00:12, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

This category could end up with many useful, fun and controversial pages!

Probably we can start debating now about ordering and numbering the verses in light of different canons -- do we use the Jewish Study Bible (Oxford) or the (Christian) New Oxford Annotated Bible, etc ?! Or maybe a POV filter for readers who only want to see their religion's ordering and verse analysis!

How about proposing a default template or ideal/potential organization for each new verse or group of verses? For instance:

Introduction) Open w/an overview statement and Biblical context (previous and succeeding verses), fun/catchy points/trivia 1) Text -- see examples Gen 1:1-2--

(a) Hebrew text with
(b) Various translations -- I would recommend also Everett Fox's poetic/literal and an Aramaic Targum (either text itself or relevant points from targum) and Septuagint (text or relevant points). Maybe RSV. Probably drop some less important/novel choices.
(c) Technical/linguistic notes on the tex:. Eg (a) grammatical, lexical info (b) concordance info; (c) accents, masora, variant readings/spellings, special marks, and other critical apparatus items; (d) misc tech/linguistic info....

2) Analysis, commentary and intepretation of the verse

(a) Academic "neutral" analysis, eg, (a) higher/lower text critical analysis,(b) archaeological, (c) sociohistorical, (d) political, feminist, etc. etc. I put this first partly due to NPOV and partly because it will be catchier for most readers.
(b) Inter-biblical interpretation (e.g., Fishbane's data in Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel), e.g. Psalms on Exodus verses
(c) Classical religious exegesis, maybe arranged chronologically by author/source, or typologically by Jewish, Christian, Moslem, etc., e.g., Qumranic, Philo, NT, Mishnah, Church Fathers, Midrash, Quranic, Medieval, etc. etc. [Maybe best to do it chronologically by source within ~5 major groupings: Ancient, Samaritan, Rabbinic, Karaitic, Pre-Reformation Christian, Moslem, Catholic, Protestant, [non-Abrahamic religions?!] etc.
(I don't think this can be divided by genre, eg allegorical - legal - midrashic etc, without constant nitpicking)
(d) Misc. literary, polemical and other exegesis

3) Usage of the verse, e.g.,

(a) Interesting popular and historical uses -- maybe put this at front of article, esp if catchy / noteworthy /fun
(b) Liturgical, again arranged by source or by religion/denomination
(c) Normative uses for religious law (e.g. halakha) and ethics (e.g. Catholic social teachings)
(d) Theological and philosophical

4) References, external links, etc

Yikes, this is way too ambitious for any given verse. Sorry if I've wasted our time/space. It could be an ideal arrangement.

Maybe do: For each verse, do the (1) text, as above. For groups of verses: do (2) Analysis, (3) Usage. It would be fine to have overlap in groupings because different exegeses/analyses cover different groupings. That's how the bibliographic databases handle the problem (e.g., ATLA Religion database).

Kudos for naming this "Hebrew Bible" and not a more POV term! Take care. --HG 05:18, 26 May 2005 (UTC)

I would like to see some of the more modern/readable translations used as well. I've been involved in adding God's Word, Holman Christian Standard Bible, New King James Version, and The Message to the various bible verse articles. It would be very nice if somone could find an online version of the Artscroll translation of the Tanakh, so that we could have a second jewish translation. Klonimus 02:50, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] About more than creationism

Do we need to have a 'Creationism' topic menu on this article. Its presence here hardly seems NPOV - and I for one rather resent it.

I agree, this is a bible verse, not an article about creationism. Klonimus 02:51, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Please don't clobber the additional translations

I'm trying to add some more modern translations to all the bible verse articles.

These translations are quite popular in the US among the evangelical community, and the HCSB and God's Word translations are both schlarly and very readable.

If you are interested in parralell translations I recomend http://bible.crosswalk.com] as a good source.Klonimus 00:30, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

  • Hey buddy who the heck are you? Don't know about the ~~~~ tildes, 'eh? That is point one. Point two is, who the heck do you think you are suggesting an outright clear POV from "the evangelical community" yet? Point three is, just how many translations from Christianity's POV does Wikipedia need here? 5? 10? 15? How about three or four only? Sound reasonable to you, whoever the heck you are? And the final point is: Stay tuned for some authentic Jewish translations because, hey bud, guess what, the Hebrew Bible was written in Hebrew (that's right!) and the good things about Judaism's translations of the Bible into other languages is that they remain faithful to the original because they know where-of they speak, unlike the 10, 15, or 20 wannabe translations, get what I mean, man? So do you really get the drift man, we gonna have some Wikipedia-style variety here man, and include a couple of Jewish published translations when we can, ok? Have a good day, whatever the heck your name is man... IZAK 11:06, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • Sup, I'm trying to have a comprehensive set of bible translations included in all the bible verse articles. That includes popular translations into english. There is no need to get nasty. Klonimus 00:30, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • The vast majority of the "translations" at [1] are not actually translations, rather they are repetitions or minor rewordings of the text as found in the KJV and older versions, which base their translations of Gen 1:1 on the Vulgate, rather than from the original Hebrew or even the Septuagint. There are a few notable exceptions, of course, but for the most part they are equally unauthentic when it comes to other passages. (Gen. 1:1 is a verse whose translation, as poetic as its common form sounds, is well-known among Bible-scholars to be incorrect. Unlike passages like that surrounding Isaiah 7:14, accurately translating Gen. 1:1 doesn't undermine Christological mistranslation and misinterpretation of the original.) Eventhough "The Complete Jewish Bible" correctly translates `alma there (in Isaiah 7:14), it too falls back on the English translation of the Vulgate for Gen.1:1, rather than going with a more accurate translation from the Hebrew, in a way revealing the fact that "The Complete Jewish Bible" is actually a Christian Bible masquerading as something it's not. To wit:
The Complete Jewish Bible - Copyright 1998 by David H. Stern. Published by Jewish New Testament Publications, Inc. Distributed by Messianic Jewish Resources Int'l.. All rights reserved. Used by permission. [2] [3]
Not that that's going to affect any POV-pushers... Tomer TALK 13:14, Jun 9, 2005 (UTC)
  • If we are wanting to keep the list of translations short, is there some reason we need two copies of the KJV? I saw in the edit history that the duplicate was removed and then edited back in. GBeeley 08:57, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
  • Regarding the 'vast majority ... are repetitions or minor rewordings' issue, the preface to the NIV claims "completely new translation ... for the Old Testament the standard Hebrew text, the Masoretic Text ... was used throughout". The preface to the NASB claims "new translation project ... BIBLIA HEBRAICA has been employed ...". GBeeley 08:57, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Useful links for authorship

In reference to the following portion of this article:

In the Masoretic text: Unvocalized: בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ Vocalized and punctuated: בְּרֵאשִׁית, בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים, אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם, וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ Transliterated: Bereishit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve'et ha'aretz. Word-by-word literal equivalent: (In the) beginning filled God the heavens and the earth. Note: The word et (אֵת) is a Hebrew particle that points to the direct object that it comes in front of. The particle has not been included in the literal equivalent above. The word ha (preceding shamayim and aretz) is a definite article equivalent to the English definite the.

It would seem that the particle *was* included i th literal equivalent above since the word "the" is included in the literal for both "heavans" and "earth." As such, the following statement should be removed from the page: "The particle has not been included in the literal equivalent above." I'm going to try to comment it out so that it can be easily added back.

-Brett

[edit] Word-by-word literal equivalent

The literal traslation of ברא is not "filled", it is more like "create" or "cause to exist". It's a verb found almost solely in connection with God as the act of bringing things into existance. As it is rare to see it in other contexts it is hard to understand it's meaning beyond "whatever it is God does that makes things exist". God is often called בורא עולם (Bore Olam) in Hebrew, Olam meaning "the world", and the whole title meaning "the creator of the World".

In any case, it's clear that ברא does not mean "to fill".DuckeJ 14:52, 3 August 2007 (UTC)