[B-Greek] LXX Genesis 1:2 - tohu as AORATOS
Albert Pietersma
albert.pietersma at sympatico.ca
Thu May 29 00:39:37 EDT 2008
On May 28, 2008, at 10:53 PM, Eric S. Weiss wrote:
> Carl W. Conrad wrote:
>
>> But that is AORISTOS: ever heard of the "aorist" 'tense'?
>> What French calls "le passé indéfini"?
>>
>> The root of hORIZW is hOROS, 'boundary'; there's no
>> relationship to fORA, the root of hORAW.
>
> Interestingly, according to Hatch & Redpath the LXX
> never uses AORISTOS. But it does use AMORFOS precisely
> one time - Wisdom 11:17:
>
> OU GAR HPOREI H PANTODUNAMOS SOU CEIR
> KAI KTISASA TON KOSMON EX AMORFOU hULHS
> EPIPEMYAI AUTOIS PLHQOS ARKWN H QRASEIS LEONTAS
>
> NETS:
> For your all-powerful hand,
> which created the world out of formless matter,
> was not at a loss to send out on them a multitude of bears or bold
> lions.
>
> I wonder why AMORFOS was not used for tohu?
Good question. One might of course also cite 2 Macc 7:28 . . . OUK EX
ONTWN EPOIHSEN AUTA [created things] hO QEOS, a statement which
Origen and other Christian writers thought to refer to creatio ex
nihilo.
NETS (Schaper:
. . . God did not make them out of things that existed
Conceivably, the translator of Genesis might have paraphrased his
source similarly——but he didn't. Instead he uses a word which Plato
uses in the Timaeus to refer to the world soul (PSYCHE), and that in
spite of the fact that, without light, the earth would have been
AORATOS in any case (see also SKOTOS EPANW THS ABUSSOU in the same
verse).
For what it is worth Plato uses AMORFOS (50D7; 51A7) and
PARESKEUASMENON (50D7) (cf. AKATASKEUASTOS in Gen 1:2) as well in his
cosmogony.
Al
>
> Eric S. Weiss
>
>
>
> ---
> B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
> B-Greek mailing list
> B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek
—
Albert Pietersma PhD
21 Cross Street,
Weston ON Canada M9N 2B8
Email: albert.pietersma at sympatico.ca
Homepage: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~pietersm
More information about the B-Greek
mailing list