Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Clivedurdle · 11-18-2004, 02:34 PM

Over on the evo pages there has been some interaction with a Christian website, and one discussion had the following.

Quote:

This discussion of Hebrew poetry was adapted from J. Sidlow Baxter, Explore the Book, Vol. 1, pp. 13-16

Genesis 1–11
Are any of these chapters poetry?
To answer this question we need to examine in a little more depth just what is involved in the parallelism of ideas that constitutes Hebrew poetry.

Let us consider Psalm 1:1, which reads as follows: ‘Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.’ Here we see triple parallelism in the nouns and verbs used (reading downwards in the following scheme):

walketh - counsel - ungodly
standeth - way - sinners
sitteth - seat - scornful

As well as this overt parallelism, there is also a covert or subtle progression of meaning. In the first column, ‘walketh’ suggests short-term acquaintance, ‘standeth’ implies readiness to discuss, and ‘sitteth’ speaks of long-term involvement. In the second column, ‘counsel’ betokens general advice, ‘way’ indicates a chosen course of action, and ‘seat’ signifies a set condition of mind. In the third column, ‘ungodly’ describes the negatively wicked, ‘sinner’ characterizes the positively wicked, and ‘scornful’ portrays the contemptuously wicked.

Other types of Hebrew poetry include contrastive parallelism, as in Proverbs 27:6, ‘Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful’, and completive parallelism, as in Psalm 46:1, ‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of need.’3.

And so we return to our question. Are any of the first 11 chapters of Genesis poetry?

Answer: No, because these chapters do not contain information or invocation in any of the forms of Hebrew poetry, in either overt or covert form, and because Hebrew scholars of substance are agreed that this is so.

Note: There certainly is repetition in Genesis chapter 1, e.g. ‘And God said …’ occurs 10 times; ‘and God saw that it was good/very good’ seven times; ‘after his/their kind’ 10 times; ‘And the evening and the morning were the … day’ six times. However, these repetitions have none of the poetic forms discussed above; rather they are statements of fact and thus a record of what happened, and possibly for emphasis—to indicate the importance of the words repeated.

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spin · 11-18-2004, 03:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

Over on the evo pages there has been some interaction with a Christian website, and one discussion had the following.

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If I gave you a prose translation of the Kalevala and a translation of a tale from 1001 Nights do you think you could tell me which was poetry?

spin

Chris Weimer · 11-18-2004, 03:52 PM

Clivedurdle: The entire Quran is poetical. What's your point? This doesn't change anything.

Clivedurdle · 11-21-2004, 05:53 AM

The creationist mind set is entirely predicated on the first few chapters of Genesis being "true", for example that God created...is a fact.

Quote:

And so we return to our question. Are any of the first 11 chapters of Genesis poetry?

Answer: No, because these chapters do not contain information or invocation in any of the forms of Hebrew poetry, in either overt or covert form, and because Hebrew scholars of substance are agreed that this is so.

Note: There certainly is repetition in Genesis chapter 1, e.g. ‘And God said …’ occurs 10 times; ‘and God saw that it was good/very good’ seven times; ‘after his/their kind’ 10 times; ‘And the evening and the morning were the … day’ six times. However, these repetitions have none of the poetic forms discussed above; rather they are statements of fact and thus a record of what happened, and possibly for emphasis—to indicate the importance of the words repeated.

Whoever wrote the above - on the site from which most of us have now been excluded, is asserting Genesis is not poetry - "rather they are statements of fact".

If we are seriously to make in roads into these mindsets, appropriate challenges to "Hebrew scholars of substance" may be of interest!

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11-18-2004, 03:52 PM	#3
Chris Weimer Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: none Posts: 9,879	Clivedurdle: The entire Quran is poetical. What's your point? This doesn't change anything.

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