manwithdream

I am far from being a scholar at Hebrew, and that is why I like to ask people who are very educated for their opinions on my ideas. The problem is that people who are educated and religious usually don't like any changes, and I don't think they will give me an honest answer because they are trying to protect the Bible as it is now. I have tried to ask religious Jewish and Christian Hebrew scholars about my ideas, and they either ignore me or just say I am wrong without giving any reason, except usually my translation sounds "forced." They don't seem to mind that the usual translation sometimes does not even fit the Hebrew words (as far as I can tell.)

I am sure that scholars could do a better job than me, but I don't think they are even trying. I think they are satisfied with most controversial quotes as they are. I am not highly educated at Hebrew, but I do the best I can with the knowledge I have. I don't think it is wrong for me to try to do this as long as I explain to people that I am not a scholar. I should have put that in the post at the beginning, but I forgot. I wrote that my ideas were wild guesses because scholars don't usually say things like that. Wild guesses are by people who are less educated. I was looking forward to reading Spin's response because Spin obviously is very educated in Hebrew.

I don't think the Bible in Hebrew or English should only be studied by biblical scholars, but by anyone interested in the subject. I think non-scholars can also think of ideas. They just have to know their limits.

I was hoping that people would comment on the part that dealt with English only, the sea plants growing before the land plants. The other part of my original post involves Hebrew, but I thought some people besides Spin might know Hebrew also.

So far no one has discussed any of the ideas, just why I am writing them, and if I am qualified to even think of them. I think all people are qualified to think and try to understand things even if they are obviously not scholars.

I know that scholarship is important, but what happens if scholars won't do certain research? Does that mean that no one should do that research at all?

Toto

Your "translations" do sound forced. You are starting from what you want the text to say, rather than what it does say.

Perhaps you should put your effort into learning Biblical Hebrew. This would at least give you more credibility when you try to talk to people who do know Hebrew.

manwithdream

How could I have gotten the translation to say what I wanted it to say, when I did not know what it would say ahead of time. I just tried different possibilities that fit the Hebrew. If you could check the Hebrew of Genesis 2:19, even as an amateur, you would say "huh?" when you look at the usual translation because I don't think it is even possible for the quote to say what the usual translation says about Adam naming the different creatures. I would like to have a real Hebrew expert look at Genesis 2:19 and say that it is grammatically correct to translate it the way it is translated now.

I think that translators sometimes look at quotes and say that close enough is good enough. I am not an expert at Hebrew, but sometimes I check the words in Hebrew, and I wonder how they come up with their translations.

You said my translations are forced because I made them fit my beliefs, but I think the usual translation is forced too.

I don't think every word in the Hebrew Bible is written at the level that only a PhD can understand. I am sure that a PhD understands things an average person would not understand, but these are still words, and even children can understand what the Hebrew Bible says at the lowest level. My ideas are at the lowest level. I don't think every thing in the Bible is just for scholars to understand.

I never say that I am right for sure, but I want to hear the opinions of people who are educated and willing to accept the possibility that the Hebrew Bible might say something else than the usual translation. That pretty much eliminates most religious biblical scholars.

Amaleq13

Very close

"It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand." From brainyquote

Toby Beau

A lot of these contradictions can be easily solved if we just change some of the words around.

And you comment about understanding the bible as opposed to misunderstanding it: that's exactly what scholars did when they came up with the documentary hypothesis. They use a very plausible scenario to explain the oddities and contradictions. Gen 1 and Gen 2 were written by two different people, with different stories.

spin

I don't understand why, when Gen 1:11 talks of grasses that produce seed and trees that produce fruit (according to their kind, ie all kinds of fruit tree), you would want the text instead to talk about other things, seaweed, sea grass and mangroves. Do they sound anything like what the source text was dealing with? And where might the writer have even seen any of these anyway?

How does this really help? You are trying to argue for a single creation story, yet you don't seem to mind a double creation of animals. Why posit a special creation for Adam and then Eve, when people were created in 1:26? With the other material in Gen 2 you seem to be sublimating the evidence for a second creation.

The text starting at 2:18 provides a narrative. God notices that it's not good for man to be alone, then in 2:19 he creates animals ("every beast of the field" and this includes wild animals) and birds out of the earth. It is only when this endeavor failed to get the desired result that Eve was created.

Do you think that the writer was not inclusive in 1:24 when he talks of "creatures of every kind"?

It's not strange that the writer preserved two creation accounts. In fact you'll find fragments of at least another (more closely related to the Babylonian creation) in which Yahweh slayed a water dragon at the beginning of creation. The writer records three accounts of a patriarch because of his fear palming off his wife as his sister in a foreign land, twice with Abraham (first in Egypt, then in Gerar) and once with Isaac (in Gerar). Genesis amongst other things is a collection of various traditions. Sometimes the traditions are already amalgamated as in the case of the flood, but that there could be two different creation stories is only a problem for fundamentalism.

The two creations have very different contexts: one was from watery chaos, while the other was from barren dryness. They reflect different views of god: one with a transcendent god whose word is sufficient for creation, while the other has a god who rolls up his sleeves and gets his hands dirty making creation happen. The first account is much more sophisticated than the second and was obviously added to the front of Genesis later than the original collection which already included the second creation. This is supported by a structure found in Genesis which uses the term TWLDWT (generations) to make sections, for while the second creation starts with a toledoth at 2:4, there is no such toledoth introducing the first creation, ie the first was added after the toledoth structure was imposed on the Genesis material.


spin

manwithdream

I think that Genesis 1 lists the events of creation, but Genesis 2 goes into a few more details. Maybe in Genesis 1 plants and trees were created, but only sea plants and swamp trees grew at first. Then animals were made. And then Adam and Eve were made in one day, but a lot might have happened in that day.

I think Genesis 2 goes into details like saying that the land plants and trees might have started growing when the ground was watered, and then G-d made Adam, and decides he needs a mate, so G-d creates animals again, but this time for Adam to choose what will be for him. Maybe this means as a mate or as domesticated animals. It does not say G-d breathed life into them, so maybe only the ones Adam chose were given souls. Maybe he did not choose any of them, or maybe he chose some of them, but none as a mate. Maybe after this, G-d made Eve from his rib.

I think that people have decided that these are two separate stories because they can't imagine how to combine them. I don't think it is easy to realize that not all plants are on land, and that maybe animals were created a second time for a different purpose. It was not easy for me to think of these possible explanations either.

I don't know much about plants and trees, so maybe you can tell me if swamp trees and sea plants fit the description of the creation of plants and trees in Genesis 1. The other plants and trees could have been created at the same time, but did not grow yet.

Even if a person does not believe in creation, I think a person can accept that a story can be told in this style. First, what happened in general, and then in detail.

Amedeo

Sequel to # 2

Gen.1 and Gen.2 are parts of the Bible, but they are actually non-Hebrew stories. Neither the Elohim nor Yahweh created intelligent and talking serpents, other gods [such as those whose sons consorted with humans before Noah's times], angels, anchangels, and devils -- which keep on popping up in the Bible immediately after the creation stories and through the tales told by jesus the messiah.

But an ethnologist will find the sources of those gods {The Canaanite supreme gods and minister -- Gabrie-EL, Micha-EL, Satana-EL, etc,; as well as difference sources for Yah/Yoh, invoked as Yahweh}.

ONE god? What one god?

spin

I wish you had dealt with my previous long post. It was attempting to outline some of the reasons why I can't agree with your views.
You must start with the text, not your desires for coherence. This would you an injection of your ideas on the text. The coherence of the text may work on other criteria than those you work with.

I asked you for example why the writer would talk about sea flora when he talks about fruit trees. Do you know of any swamp fruit trees? Do you know of there having been any swamp trees on the Palestinian coast? Do you know of any swamps on the Levantine coast that might have inspired the writer?

Swamp fruit trees? 1:11 specifically talks of fruit trees bearing fruit, fruit as in the fruit that Adam and Eve ate of. I can see no way at all to read into the text what you are trying to do, when you introduce what appears to me to be a totally foreign idea to the historical context, ie swamp trees and sea plants. You need to do the footwork here. If you think that there is evidence which suggests that the normal reading of the text should be passed over, then you should show the evidence. I can only show you the evidence I see.


spin

Lucretius

I always love this implied bestiality in Genesis on the part of God and Adam
God created all these "animals" but Adam didn't "fancy any of them" so God had another go at creating a mate ,who this time actually looked like another human being