More on Turkels latest (Part 4)
Achilles achillesz@usa.net
Sun, 31 Jan 1999 23:25:01 -0500 (00917864701, 04240981369558@unifour.com)
Section 3 of my critique of
http://www.integrityonline15.com/jpholding/tekton/tekton_05_03_03.html
(presented primarily for Jason Carter, the person I refer to when I say
"you" in this post)
Last time I dealt with Turkel's contention that "erets" and "sadeh" in Genesis
1 and 2 respectively implied that different sorts of plants were being
mentioned, to resolve the apparent contradiction in Genesis on whether plants
or men were created first, and, I think, once again showed his assertions to be
insupportable, and his reading to show utter disregard for what the text really
says, and thus to show disrespect and disregard for the book he claims to
regard as the Word of G-d.
I will now examine his next contention, that the alleged contradiction between
the relative order of the creation of man and the other animals in the two is
due to a mistaken translation of verse 2:19 in the present rather than the
pluperfect.
Turkel:
> But now to the second alleged contradiction, and it is a little tougher to deal
> with:
> Gen. 1:24-5 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after
> his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and
> it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after
> their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God
> saw that it was good.
> Gen. 2:18-20 And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone;
> I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the LORD God formed
> every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam
> to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living
> creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to
> the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not
> found an help meet for him. Problem? G1 says that animals were created before
> man; G2 says that man came first, then animals...or does it? For quite some time
> now the classical solution to this problem has been to do what the NIV (but no
> other version that I know of) has done, and that is to render the verb in verse
> 2:19 not as simple past tense, but as a pluperfect, so:
> Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and
> all the birds of the air.
Achilles
Others here have already adequately pointed out the apparent dishonesty in
Turkel's revision here, so I will just recap. He originally claimed that ALL
modern translations rendered this as the NIV does, and this was quickly shown
to be wrong by members of this list. He now says that "the NIV (but no other
version that I know of)" translates it thus.
Ironically, if Turkel was half as conscienscous as I in checking his facts
before he posts he would be aware that the Darby Translation - First published
in 1890 by John Nelson Darby, an Anglo-Irish Bible teacher associated with the
early years of the Plymouth Brethren - renders the verb as a pluperfect also.
The fact that he revised his earlier statement without admitting it, and even
the revised version of his statement shows quite clearly that he never went to
the trouble to do such a basic check as a review of the verse in the
translations readily available online, speaks for itself.
I have little else to say on this point. This post will be the weakest of the
series, and I will not try to huff and puff and distract you from that. I admit
it freely, in the spirit of honesty and integrity that Turkel quite evidently
does not know.
As I have already said, I don't speak Hebrew (and, let's not forget, neither
does Turkel.) Other posters with more knowledge of the subject have already
taken this particular issue out of my depth, and I am loathe to try to chase it
there. However, Turkel labours under the same limitation I do here, and he has
not been shy to chase points far beyond his competence; and I did commit myself
to be thorough in dealing with his work, so I will do what I can here.
I tell you this - based on Turkels performance in areas where I can confidently
evaluate the arguments, I see no reason to give him any benefit of the doubt
when he chases off into areas that neither of us are competent in.
And further, giving him the benefit of the doubt for the sake of argument,
assuming he is 100% correct on this point he has still failed utterly on
everything he wrote leading up to this section - among other things his attempt
to harmonize the contradiction concerning the creation of plants has failed
utterly.
Turkel:
> Thus, it is asserted by various proponents, for example, from Leupold's
> Exposition of Genesis:
> Without any emphasis on the sequence of acts the account here records the making
> of the various creatures and the bringing of them to man. That in reality they
> had been made prior to the creation of man is so entirely apparent from chapter
> one as not to require explanation. But the reminder that God had "molded" them
> makes obvious His power to bring them to man and so is quite appropriately
> mentioned here. It would not, in our estimation, be wrong to translate yatsar as
> a pluperfect in this instance: 'He had molded.' The insistence of the critics
> upon a plain past is partly the result of the attempt to make chapters one and
> two clash at as many points as possible.
Achilles
Ok, Leupold, apparently Herbert Carl Leupold (thanks Nancy,) a man whose
writings are considered worthy of publishing by someone in Grand Rapids, agrees
with Turkel in his reading. Excuse me if I am not horribly impressed,
especially since Turkel doesn't bother to even attempt to explain who this
Leupold is or what his qualifications are. If Nancy hadn't posted I would know
nothing about him at all, and even with her post I know nothing that leads me
to put any great confidence in his words.
That the translators of the NIV agreed with his reading impresses me far more
than that this Leupold, whoever he is, does. The agreement of the translators
of the NIV is the only good evidence I have seen Turkel produce so far. Those
people, at least, I am confident actually could read Hebrew. But so could the
translators of the 26(+?) versions that disagree.
> Likewise, others have noted that the very context of the passages indicate that
> the pluperfect should be used, and this was the simple solution which I offered
> in an initial analysis of this verse, in reply to claims of contradiction by Jim
> Merritt.
> However, in stepped at this point a thrall of the Till school, who, having
> apparently found a copy in the street (it is hard to imagine any of them going
> to a library to look this sort of thing up) consulted the revered Gensenius'
> Hebrew Grammar and asserted that "such a reading is NOT POSSIBLE in the Hebrew
> since (starting after Gen. 2:4) the form of the narrative consists of a number
> of temporally consecutive clauses, linked by a special marker known as "WAW
> CONSECUTIVE". And what is this item? Citing "section 49a, note 1, page 133" of
> that grammar, they said:
Achilles
I'll get to what they said in a moment, but first I must again interrupt and
point out that there is no "Till school" and no "thralls" in these parts to the
best of my knowledge. If memory serves it was Joseph Crea who posted this
(apologies if I am wrong on that) and he is not a man I have any trouble at all
imagining in a library.
Turkel, quoting an unnamed "thrall" of "the Till school" paraphrasing "the
revered Gensenius' Hebrew Grammar" continues:
> "This name best expresses the prevailing syntactical relation, for by WAW
> CONSECUTIVE an action is always represented as the direct, or at least temporal
> CONSEQUENCE of a preceding action."
Achilles
OK, if this is true, then the NIV translation team, and Darby (who Turkel seems
to be unaware of) are wrong, and the other 26(+?) translators/translation teams
are right.
When we find ourselves out of our depth (as anyone who is not a fluent speaker
of Hebrew must be on this point) a good, though not foolproof, way to make
decisions is to weigh the opinions of experts. 26 of 28 sources, oops, make
that 26 of 29 (counting "the revered Gensenius") say Turkel is wrong.
Turkel:
> Thus, they said, "the Genesis 2 narrative literally takes the form of a series
> of clauses WHICH OCCUR IN A TEMPORALLY ORDERED SEQUENCE" and because the "Hebrew
> syntax tells us that the actions performed in such a clause are '...the direct,
> or at least temporal consequence of a preceding action', the only preceding
> action for which the creation of the beasts and birds can reasonably be
> considered 'a direct consequence' is God's declaration that He will make a
> helper for 'the man'. " And that is that -- or is it? In fact, our Till-thrall
> has simply done no more than show us that while complete ignorance is rather
> dangerous, a little knowledge is even more so.
Achilles
At this point I cannot resist the temptation to interject that Turkel is a far
better example of the truth of this proverb than Crea.
Turkel:
> They have certainly reported the text of the grammar correctly, but the "waw
> consecutive" is rather a more complicated beast than this person supposes, for
> it does not ALWAYS indicate temporal sequence, as indeed the grammar indicates.
> There are examples in the OT, NT, and in Egyptian and Assyrian literature of
> "dischronologized" narratives where items are arranged topically rather than
> chronologically, and this would justify our own use of the pluperfect for the
> sake of context; indeed, even commentators that prefer to keep the simple past
> tense suppose not that these is a contradiction, but that G2 is reporting the
> order out of sequence purposely in order to stress man's dominion over the
> created animals. An older commentary by Keil and Delitsch made this point
> nicely:
> The consecutive arrangement (in Gen. 2:19) may be explained on the supposition
> that the writer, who was about to describe the relation of man to the beast,
> went back to the creation, in the simple method of the early Semitic historian,
> and placed this first instead of making it subordinate; so that our modern style
> of expressing the same would be "God brought to Adam the beast which He had
> formed."
> A striking example of this style of narrative is in 1 Kings 7:13. The building
> and completion of the temple we noticed several times in chapter 6, and the last
> time in connection with the year and month, chapter 6:9,14,37,38. After that,
> the fact is stated that the royal palace was 13 years in building; and then it
> is related that Solomon fetched Hiram from Tyre, to make 2 pillars. If we are to
> understand the (WAW/VAV) consecutive here, Solomon would be made to send for the
> artist 13 years after the temple was finished. It only expresses the thought,
> "Hiram, whom Solomon fetched from Tyre. -Also note Judges 2:6.
Achilles
I don't see their point here. There is a consecutive implied in this verse, but
not the one Turkel and his sources want to be there - they are trying to tie it
all the way back to the previous chapter.
Linking it into the narrative of chapter 7 where it actually occurs, and
looking specifically at the previous verse would only mean that some stonework
and carpentry was done, and then Hiram, who "was highly skilled and experienced
in all kinds of bronze work." was brought in. All references to bronze work in
chapter 7 are after, not before, this verse.
If I am missing something here please point it out.
Turkel:
> More than this, there are also various "exceptions" which crop up in Hebrew
> grammar where the waw consecutive is used. Greenberg, citing the grammar of
> Jouon, notes [Gree.UE, 37, 168n] that the waw consecutive "sometimes occurs when
> there is no idea of succession" and that there are places where a pluperfect can
> be rendered in accordance with a summarizing or recapitulating use of the waw
> consecutive. Collins [Coll.WAP] points out that there are cases of unmarked
> pluperfects in the OT, and that the specific verb in question in this verse
> itself often warrants a pluperfect translation. Furthermore, another contributor
> to this debate observed:
Achilles
Ok, Greenberg sites Jouon that the waw consecutive "sometimes occurs when
there is no idea of succession." Whoever they are. I will concede in argumento
that his citation is correct, that Jouon is qualified to comment and that he
would agree that Genesis 2 is such a case (despite the fact Turkel makes no
attempt to substantiate any of those conditions - necessary ones if this is to
have any relevance) and simply note that the talley of authorities, updated
based on that, now stands by my count at 27 out of 30 against Turkels reading.
Turkel quotes an unidentified contributor:
> Gen. 2:19 begins with VaYYiTSeR; the verb "YaTSaR" in the imperfect with a WAW
> consecutive. Waltke and O'Connor ("Introduction to the Syntax of Biblical
> Hebrew", pp. 544-546) say that "It (imperfect with a WAW consecutive) shows in
> Hebrew meanings equivalent to those of the suffix (perfect) conjugation."
> Earlier, on p. 490, they had already shown that the suffix conjugation can have
> a pluperfect meaning; later, on p. 552, they show that the imperfect with a WAW
> consecutive can also have a pluperfect meaning, giving as examples "The Lord
> *had said* (Hebrew: VaYeDaBBeR) to Moses" (Num. 1:47-49) and "The Lord *had
> said* (Hebrew: VaYYoMeR) to Moses" (Ex. 4:18-19).
Turkel comments:
> I have not been able to check the accuracy of this cite, but assuming it is
> true, we have now as many as four indications that the use of the waw
> consecutive in no way diminishes the argument for the use of the pluperfect. It
> remains untouched by the critic's argument.
Achilles
The implication is that this is posted on a web site somewhere, so why does
Turkel not tell us where?
At any rate, I cannot confirm it's accuracy either. My conclusion thus far
stands. Turkel has failed miserably at every point up to this one, his points
leading up to this one are easily debunked by anyone that knows how to use
simple bible study tools without any knowledge of ancient languages. On this
one point, he dashes off beyond my competence, and so my critique is less
overwhelming, but we must remember that in doing so he has dashed off beyond
his own competence as well.
I cannot claim that I have shown this particular claim to be impossible. But
even if it is true, we still have two contradictory accounts in Genesis.
And I am confident I have shown that there is no necessity to conclude that
even in this limited instance he is correct. It relies primarily on
authorities, and the scorecard on that issue is very unfavourable to him, of 30
that have been cited so far, at best he can claim 3 agree with him.
It's getting late, and I am tired, so part 5 will not be forthcoming tonight. I
expect to compose it tomorrow, and will examine his section entitled "In Case
You Want to Argue."
I would greatly appreciate it if you would let me know that you are indeed
reading these, Jason, as I am taking the time to write this entirely for your
benefit.
/Achilles achillesz@usa.net
All rights reserved.
Random thought for the moment:
When he saw creation all around, and the throng of angels around
him that had come forth from him, he said to them, 'I am a jealous
God, and there is no other God besides me.' But by making this
announcement, he suggested to the angels with him that there is
another God. For if there were no other God, of whom would he be
jealous?
-- The Apostle John
The Secret Gospel of John, pub. ~ before A.D. 180