Oldest Book in The Bible

Doing Hebrew study via Strong’s is dangerous. The verb means several things (e.g., split, examine, penetrate)…there is not a “basic meaning.” Regardless, noun meanings and verb meanings of the same root do not necessarily correspond to the same semantic range. The meaning of “morning”–the only meaning attested for its about 200 uses in the OT–derives from “split” but that’s all that should be said about the verb-noun connection. There is absolutely no evidence for the noun having the meaning of “control” in classical Hebrew. If “many people” say that, they are wrong. (And modern Hebrew definitely offers no help for understanding classical Hebrew.)

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I agree now looking back at it. Their evidence is very weak, and almost all of it comes from Nachmanides theory that he got only because he thought the bible teaches the earth is older than sun, which it doesn’t. Reasons to believe has an article on that. It’s kind of funny that I believed and agreed with people who said that lol

however, they observe that the feminine form means control in modern hebrew, and because of this, they think Boqer also meant control. If you guys can answer this than I 100% agree with you guys

The modern Hebrew feminine form does not exist in the OT (nor would it be relevant if it did). There are two (different) feminine forms used once each: one refers to punishment (Lev 19:20); the other to a shepherd’s care for his flock (Ezek 34:12).

they associate care with control

which has nothing to do with the masculine noun that means “morning.”

Seems to be such a straight-forward book, but in my study I have read scholars in ancient Hebrew say it is the most difficult book in the OT to translate and many of the words look contrived so as to appear old. Many words and references seem to show a knowledge of later Israelite literature and thinking. Makes for an interesting study.

However, they point out that almost all Hebrew nouns have multiple definitions. Take the feminine noun Baqarah for example. It comes from the same root as the word Boqer, which means morning. In Hebrew, in means control, care, and inspect. It’s used once in the Bible(Exodus 34:12), and it means care, as in take care of. Take care of is very similar to control. They also believe that one of the definitions was inspect because that’s similar to control, and because when you inspect you institute control, it came to mean inspect. Boqer means morning, and they believe it meant control originally. They associate morning with control, because during morning, things become less chaotic, as visibility is restored, and things are discernible. Because morning brings order, it came to mean morning. Since Hebrew words have multiple definitions, Boqer must also mean control. Note that I’m not saying I agree. Is this true? Do all Hebrew words have multiple definitions? Because they argue that Ereb and Boqer must have definitions other than evening and morning.

You mean Ezekiel; the noun here is derived from a homonym (bqr) of the one from which “morning” is derived, so it has nothing to do with the meaning of Gen 1:5.

No
From BDB (on the verbal root behind the noun): "from split, penetrate, as the dawn the darkness, light through cloud-rifts, etc. "
From HALOT: “orig. break of day, first light”

No

Also, this may be off topic but young earth creationists claim that whenever yom is numbered, it means 24 hours. Is this true?

disregard my question. I found an answer to the number argument. Anyways, many of the people claim that Ereb and Boqer could also mean disorderly and orderly during the time of Genesis 1, as well as evening and morning. They claim that during Genesis 1, chaos was still a definition for ereb and order for boqer, and shortly after, like 2 years later, the words lost their definitions of chaos and order. This claim is based on so many unprovable assumptions so what do you think?

Who are these people? I know of no Bliblical/Classical Hebrew lexicon or scholar that has argued this.

I would like to know how anybody could have the information needed for this claim.

I agree. That’s why I said it’s based on too many assumptions and I don’t agree with it. It seems like you guys know way more about Hebrew than me (lol) so I wanted to see what you guys had to say. Thank you for your guys’ responses. I agree with you guys

For me, in a case like this, I wouldn’t hesitate to throw out what ever is being claimed without need of outside confirmation and also to discount anything else that source said. In a former job I used to say “I believe everybody until I catch them lying to me and then I don’t believe anything they say.”

The thing is that the sources got it from Nachmanides, who completely misinterpreted the scripture, so I may not discount EVERYTHING on that source, just that one article.

This should immediately strike you as a stupid assertion, since Genesis can’t even be dated with that level of precision and language change takes generations not days.

true. That’s why I don’t agree with this claim. Based on too many dumb assumptions and just doesn’t seem to be logical

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