Ain\'t nature wonderful (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, September 17, 2010, 14:50 (5181 days ago) @ dhw


> Genesis is clearly a huge problem, and rather frustratingly the translator's notes tend to state the obvious ("swarm with swarms" is a cognate construction to emphasize fertility) but shed no light on such crucial issues as the ambiguity of "kind". If anything, I'd say the statement that God was "concerned with defining and dividing time, space and species" suggests that God did create the species individually. 46tn gives three general classifications, which again are obvious, but still doesn't resolve the ambiguity of "after their kind". -The problem with interpretation of old written Hebrew is that that were less than 3,000 base words in the writing and with prefixes,and suffixes, the usable total came to about 10 thousand words. Further translation relies upon context of the discussion in the Torah at hand. Yom means an instant up to an eon. Yam means a puddle up to an ocean. The 'Sea' of Galilee is a 5x13 mile lake.-
> 
> I must add, though, that I really appreciate the trouble you've gone to and the new dimensions you're bringing to our discussions.-Hear, hear!