What has Moses to do with Genesis 1? Moses is from Exodus onwards.
Yes, there is an invented Jewish tradition that “Moses wrote the Pentateuch”… just as there is an invented Christian tradition of “three wise men named Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar”. But when we come to digging inside the text, as we are doing here, shouldn’t we be prepared to lay aside such traditions?
Not when translating tohu. Chaos was the beginning of Greek cosmogony. From chaos came Earth, night, the abyss and love. And the Dutch word gas. Unless you’re trying to be anachronistic. In which case entropy is best.
I’ve not claimed that the word tohu denotes “chaos.” It’s whether the concept behind tohu wabohu connotes chaos (or similar). It’s a difference between word and concept. There is no Hebrew word that means “chaos,” so I don’t expect the Greek translation to denote this (and, beyond this, we need not assume the Greek translation translates the Hebrew correctly).
definitely not trying to do this.
That argument is grammatically silly, though it is popular in some young-earth circles. You don’t determine if a word might be metaphorically used based on whether it is in metaphors elsewhere; you determine if it is metaphorical based on the context and on your knowledge of how the world works. A similar argument coming from a different part of the theological spectrum is “Paul couldn’t possibly use the same word in slightly different ways in two different letters, so at least one must be spurious”. The vast majority of verses mentioning a door are quite literal, but no sensible person would claim that influences how we should interpret Jesus saying “I am the door of the sheep.”
Interesting blog about the word you wish not to use, using it in the way it should be in this context: Experimental Theology: Maps of Meaning with Jordan Peterson: Week 4, Myth and Meaning
The blog discussed how meaning is derived from the story, not the physical parameters and scientific derivatives. While I don’t agree with Jordan Peterson on everything, he makes some good observations.
tohu: formlessness, confusion, unreality, emptiness
NASB Translation
chaos (1), confusion (1), desolation (1), emptiness (1), empty space (1), formless (2), futile (2), futile things (1), meaningless (2), meaningless arguments (1), nothing (2), waste (3), waste place (2).
Chaos is more than valid. And less. Waste is a thermodynamic phenomenon including entropy, chaos and waste are poetically synonymous and opposites. Chaos has all states within it, has more potential. Waste, as in wasteland, a battlefield the day after, has none. Except more bohu. Decay.
Causality begins in unstable absolute nothingness. Chaos yawns.
Greek words can be relevant to OT texts. My Greek professor used to make epic assignments where we had to trace the Greek words used to translate various Hebrew words through the Greek translation of the OT. It showed how people closer to time and place saw the Hebrew! And it shed OT light on the NT in amazing ways.
I totally agree, but the Greek tranalations didn’t always get it right. It’s a case by case basis.
All of evangelical Christianity depends upon the concept of original sin which requires a literal Adam and Eve (without doing cartwheels to somehow make them the first primates with cognition). So, disparaging any of Genesis as myth seems to undermine Christianity in general so defending literalism is essential in this mind-set and it makes perfect sense.
For the people who think evening and morning is metaphorical, I think the phrarse can be metaphorical, but what does it mean? What does the evening and morning represent? Beginnings and endings? Darkness being turned into light? Depending on your guys’ opinion, I’ll have other questions.
Ok, but did the people in Israel understand evening as connoting chaos/darkness and morning as connoting control/order? If they didn’t, why would the author write it this way if they didn’t understand evening and morning representing/connoting chaos and order respectively?
Would the people who have read the story understood it was not literal? Yes.
ok, but would they understand that it meant something like chaos and order? I know it seems like a weird question, but I think about stuff like this. How does evening represent chaos and morning represent order?
I’m not sure where you got that idea from. First time I’ve heard it.
But let’s say that’s true.
The first thing I imagine would be seeing if evening and morning is being confused for night and day.
Then we could trade those words and themes , and context to see if it makes sense.
Lastly we could look into was there other writings in that time period that used evening and morning as those themes.
If the prose as a whole is metaphorical, details do not always carry special meaning in and of themselves. “Evening and morning” would then poetically develop the overall progression of creation, without representing hard and fast lines of demarcation.
I think it does make sense for the context actually. On each creative days, there is darkness. For example on the 5th day, there is darkness. There are no animals. But he creates birds and sea mammals. Because of this, there is some order, because the animals are there. However, there is still some darkness, because land mammals and humans weren’t created yet.
This is irrelevant and not true. You cannot determine the meaning of a passage by applying definitions of words used in different contexts. That isn’t how meaning-making in language is done by humans.
There are multiple examples I can think of off the top of my head that use morning in non literal ways.
“Sorrow may last for a night, but joy comes in the morning” is a figurative way of saying sadness won’t last forever.
Jesus is called the morning star in Revelation. It’s a figurative title, not anything to do with time periods.
Sure. I just was not sure what you were focused on.
There was darkness separated into darkness and light.
There was the days delayed into night and day.
The light was separated into sun and moon.
So i was not sure really what part you were focused on.
But was the dark watery world chaotic? Yes.
Tim Mackie has some good podcasts on this. Just search chaotic waters and a few different episodes pop up.
Ok. I now agree that these don’t refer to time periods. What are these verses that you mentioned? What do you think they represent?
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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