@JamesShewey Although....I would suggest that he was looking for a convincing argument and (appropriately) did not have a pre-specified conclusion that he required. Doing it any other way would be contrary to the spirit of the site. There were a lot of good options there!
@JamesShewey I am the one upvote on your post... To be clear, I wasn't complaining I "lost" in any way. Scott's argument is very good & I imagine it was a tough call. (I also won 3 bounties from H3brew over previous weeks, so that may have entered into the decision.) I am just interested in strengthening the argument since I think it is a very important passage.
@Susan A good question indeed (and already bountied once w/o much result)
@ThaddeusB Was the bounty Caleb’s or somebody else’s? Not sure if there’s a way for me to find out if I’m not a mod.
It’s of course way too broad in a way, but somebody with some perspective could give an overview that I would find helpful. Every time I read a related discussion I finish thinking that there are really never any solid conclusions (or even reliable hints) to be drawn about dates based on linguistic info, which I’m sure is inaccurate.
@Susan My Greek is not good, but I'd note that adjectives agree for noun class, not real world gender. If σύζυγος can refer to either real world gender but is masculine itself, then γνήσιε being a masculine vocative adjective doesn't tell us anything of the real world gender?
@curiousdannii I actually wondered the same thing and looked through to find some uses of that word as “wife”, and it consistently changes to a feminine article, so I would expect the adjective to follow suit.
i.e. the noun seems to become a grammatically feminine word when applied to a woman
@curiousdannii Not sure at all. I thought I had made the search work at Perseus, but I’m not reproducing that. It doesn’t have later stuff anyway I guess. Not sure how to search the relevant lit.
But I would expect BDAG to get it right (ἡ).
But obviously, there’s something that doesn’t fit...
Genesis 3:6 (NIV) When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was
good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining
wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband,
who was with her, and he ate it.
When I look at different translations of Genes...
@JamesShewey I’m not sure I have much to say, but I’ll think about it. It definitely says “with her”. The omission seems to have popped up in the Vulgate, for whatever reason. But isn’t it obvious anyway that at the time she gave it to him he was with her?
I’m not sure the text offers much as to at what point he had shown up, just that he was there when she gave it to him. Maybe there’s more...
Thanks. I respect your insights into Hebrew linguistics a great deal. My knowledge of Hebrew is pretty limited (Read: "nearly non-existent"), so I was interested in your take on what it said.
It interests me in that if Adam is standing there watching Eve, it makes him complicit in the crime (in my view) and would tend to lead to much less sexist interpretations.
@JamesShewey Haha, that’s probably undue, but thanks. Lots of folks around with a lot better Hebrew than I have. Is the sexist interpretation you refer to 1 Tim, or something modern?
No, not 1 Tim or anything like that. Just that Eve was the "cause" of the fall. This places the blame on womankind exclusively. I have seen (terrible) preachers generalize that to womankind in order to put-down the whole gender. If Adam was standing there watching the whole thing unfold, that really undermines that mindset.
@JamesShewey I don’t think I’ve heard the anti-women take on it (at least not seriously considered/preached), but maybe it’s more widespread than I know.
@JamesShewey Still not sure how RSV managed to omit “with her” - looks like it was corrected (?) in NRSV.
@JamesShewey I think you might be misunderstanding something here:
> In Hebrew, usually the Verb or Adjective tells the reader if it the direct object should be rendered in the singular or plural.
The linked post by Frank Luke is pointing out that the number of the verb generally shows the number of the subject, regardless of the form. (This forms the basis for the question -- if singular (“God”), it is seemingly a deviation from that rule.)
Adjectives, of course, can be helpful for a noun in any position, but here there is no adjective, and I don’t think the number of the verb can be adduced to provide information about the number of its object, or vice versa.
(P.S. I don’t know the answer to the question. :-))
@JamesShewey To make it more complicated, it’s actually all one word, inflected in the “causative” stem. But for the purpose of syntax, yes, it’s “cause”.
@JamesShewey Ah, I see. Because אֹתִי is the definite direct object marker + first person singular suffix. It is explicitly accusative (=me). If a first person subject pronoun is stated (=I), it’s a different word (אני or אנכי).
@JamesShewey Sorry about ^^ typo! Suffix! Not subject.
Man - I've really gotten myself trapped in that answer. My point was mostly that it needs to be consistently translated throughout the book and unless it is clear it is referring to something other than Yahweh, God is appropriate because it is consistent. Vs 11 makes it pretty clear in my mind that it is not a reference to gods.
It generated quite a bit of chatter though in regards to the subject and I seem to be really getting bogged down by that one phrase.
It generated quite a bit of chatter though and I seem to be really getting bogged down by that one phrase.
@JamesShewey Right, the argument from context would probably be the best to support that (which is, I assume, how most translations got there). If that’s correct (“God”), the grammar is peculiar, which certainly wouldn’t be unprecedented in the Hebrew Bible...
So, I am pretty dense when it comes to linguistics. I took 7 years of Spanish from Jr. high though college and still can barely order a taco. To back up for a second:
@JamesShewey I didn’t explain that very well. The suffix is the direct object (=me). In Hebrew, pronouns often show up as suffixes rather than words of their own. את is the “direct object marker” in that it marks the suffix (י) as being the DO of a verb. That little י is a pronoun in this context.
@JamesShewey Right, verb-subject-object is supposedly the “default” order, with zillions of exceptions, including here (VOS).
@JamesShewey The direct object receives the action of the verb. So here elohim does the causing and Abraham is the one who receives that action -- he is caused to wander.
So then I think the bit that muddles this the most may be the fact that this one verb in Hebrew basically translates to two in English.
If it was just caused, then it's pretty clear that Elohim is the subject who is doing the causing which effects Abraham. Conversely if this just meant "wandering" it would be pretty clear that Abraham is the one doing the wandering making him the subject of the sentence.
@Susan Thanks for going over that BTW. I really appreciate it.
@JamesShewey Yes, that is a quirk of Hebrew. Sometimes English will have a different word to express the causative idea (to come --> to bring (= cause to come)), but not always.
Genesis 1:3 God spoke which is frequency and vibration. Every star planet magnet sun etc. etc. etc. has or emits frequency and vibration. In the field of cymatic's the study of frequency and vibration on mater. You can see how mater is effected by the vibrations. Mater wants to go to the stillnes...
a question if I may - I am an Atheist, would questions/answers from a rationalist point of view be welcome? and critically, will it be met with respect instead of preaching?
@Ghost So long as question are well written and on-topic you are welcome here. Unlike the Christianity SE, we tend to attract less "preachey" crowd. It is also a little diverse in that many Jewish people also post questions here - not just Christians. We try hard to moderate any preaching or disrespect on this SE.
@Ghost To be clear, we don't really do "application" of any kind (theistic or otherwise), but rather focus on authorial intent. So if you what to understand/talk about authorial intent from a rationalist POV, that is perfectly fine. If you want to say "this verse shows religious idea is invalid because of interpretation X" that would not be well received (just as answers that say "religious idea is confirmed by this interpretation of this verse" are not well received).
@JamesShewey Haha, perhaps. But simply closing it is much better.
@Nathaniel The OP needs to provide more context (As someone has requested). There is really no way to guess otherwise.
@Ghost You are welcome, but you will be challenged on assuming a dichotomy between "rationalist" and... faith? I would argue true faith is quite rational and based upon reason, and all good interpretations of Scripture from a faith based perspective are rational in their argument. Rather, you would be making rational arguments from a presuppositional standpoint of there being no God.
Genesis 3:6 (NIV) When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was
good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining
wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband,
who was with her, and he ate it.
When I look at different translations of Genes...
