"In the beginning the Word was existing. And the Word was in fellowship with God the Father. And the Word was as to His essence absolute deity." (Wuest)
One of the NIV translators, Ralph Earle, affirms this reading of John 1:1:
"The Logos is not equivalent to 'God'; there is also God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. But he is fully divine. We could translate this clause either literally--'God was the Word'--or as, 'The Word was deity.' It is an emphatic declaration of the deity of the Logos, who in verse 14 is identified with Jesus."
See Earle, Word Meanings in the New Testament, page 81.
This post is simply informational, not designed to refute Wuest or Earle, et al.
Sunday, February 07, 2021
John 1:1 (Kenneth Wuest's "Expanded Translation")
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111 comments:
"Logos, who in verse 14 is identified with Jesus.". As long as he does not say - identified AS Jesus.
I don't think Earle would have a problem with that claim either, that the Logos is identifieed as Jesus. That is what most works proclaim about the Johannine Prologue.
http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S2305-445X2016000100007
According to Gerald Bray, "the Word (Logos), identified as Jesus Christ, was already present in 'the beginning'" (The Attributes of God)
Roy Zuck: "John 1:1 makes three assertions about the Word (the Logos, identified as Jesus in 1:14)."
See A Biblical Theology of the NT.
1 John 1:1-3 says otherwise.
Unimpressed with the selective use of Philo.
https://biblehub.com/greek/o_3739.htm
"John 1:1-5 shows no conversations between God and 'the word' like those that are recorded between God and Jesus. This further demonstrates the impersonality of 'the word.'"
Dr. Colin Brown of Fuller Seminary comments: "To read John 1:1 as if it means 'In the beginning was the Son' is patently wrong." Also Professor of Theology at Heidleberg H.H. Wendt says: "We should not argue from Philo's meaning of 'word' as a...pre-existing personality."
James Dunn says "in the earlier stages of the poem we are still dealing with the Wisdom...not as a personal being, but as the wise utterance of God personified"
Roger Haight says: "One thing is certain, the Prologue of John does not represent direct descriptive knowledge of a divine entity or being called Word, who descended and became a human being. To read a metaphor as literal speech is misinterpretation;..."
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=TkD7DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58&dq=%22not+as+a+personal+being,+but+as+the+wise+utterance+of+God+personified%22&source=bl&ots=VTRDzPttwS&sig=ACfU3U2a8DAyQ7TUgqQQrBWWXx7qG8ozkQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjJ9-iAxNvuAhXLShUIHRk1DBAQ6AEwAnoECAoQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22not%20as%20a%20personal%20being%2C%20but%20as%20the%20wise%20utterance%20of%20God%20personified%22&f=false
The majority of scholarship regarding the prologue has a trinitarian background and bias. They see the son in verse 1. His relationship to the father is not the issue here though. Its whether a son can even be found in verse 1.
1 John 1:1-3 is a different but complementary account for the Johannine Prologue. I personally would not use 1 John to prove that Christ is the Logos, but I don't think the account contradicts the Gospel either. The use of ὅ doesn't establish much in the way of theology or ontology: it's a grammatical issue. For instance, see Matthew 13:8, 23.
From Thayer: "The Neuter ὁ a. refers to nouns of the masculine and the feminine gender, and to plurals, when that which is denoted by these nouns is regarded as a thing (cf. Buttmann, § 129, 6): λεπτά δύο, ὁ ἐστι κοδράντης, Mark 12:42; ἀγάπην, ὁ ἐστι σύνδεσμος, Colossians 3:14 L T Tr WH; ἄρτους, ὁ etc. Matthew 12:4 L text T Tr WH."
I believe newer sources will bear out the same point.
Meyer's NT Commentary on 1 John 1:1: "That the apostle, however, does not thereby mean a mere abstraction, but a real personality, is clear, first from ὃ ἀκηκόαμεν κ.τ.λ. and ἐφανερώθη, and then especially from the comparison with the prooemium of the Gospel of John, with which what is said here is in such conformity that it cannot be doubted that by ὃ ἦν ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς the same subject is meant as is there spoken of as ὁ λόγος. The neuter form does not entitle us to understand by ὃ ἦν κ.τ.λ., with the Greek commentators Theophylact, Oecumenius, and the Scholiasts, the 'μυστήριον of God,' namely, ὅτι Θεὸς ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί, or even, with Grotius, the 'res a Deo destinatae.'"
One of the quotes above is an argument ex silentio: just because God and the Word do not converse in the Johannine Prologue does not mean that the Logos is impersonal. That's an assertion and not strong proof.
Also read M.J. Harris' entire chapter about John 1:1.
See https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198792505.001.0001/acprof-9780198792505-chapter-2
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337058876_A_Critical_Study_of_the_Translations_of_logos_in_John_11_14
https://larryhurtado.wordpress.com/2014/05/15/jesus-pre-existence-etc-responding-to-questions/
"Thus the question concerning the meaning of 1:14 is answered in 1:32–3." Exactly. This when Jesus is called rabbi. All the things he does from that point onward demonstrate the father - 1 John 1-3.
In Deuteronomy 18:18, who does this primarily refer?
Who gave him the name Joshuah (Jesus) and how is this echoed in the NT?
https://youtu.be/ftM4cY7e4Zw
https://www.ntwrightonline.org/2170-2/
Compare https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwi6ycbFlODuAhUSU98KHQTXCoU4MhAWMAF6BAgBEAI&url=https%3A%2F%2Frepository.divinity.edu.au%2F73%2F1%2F2004_Book_Langmead_TheWordMadeFlesh.pdf&usg=AOvVaw1PEdz-fPaWhBrogJhErJIE
Word became flesh: https://epublications.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1606&context=dissertations_mu
https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?t=lxx&strongs=g4637
John 2:21
The temple but not the Shekinah light that resides within.
John 8:12 compare John 14:10.
https://biblehub.com/text/ephesians/5-8.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXdtohAsm_0
https://www.jstor.org/stable/24735884?seq=1
See https://ntwrightpage.com/2016/07/12/jesus-and-the-identity-of-god/
I noted the original publish date. Things have moved on since then.
I agree that the boundary between what was thought to be man and devine is artificial.
https://youtu.be/nOnHDQgIoCU
An intesting point here about a high priests divinity although her thoughts on an earlier belief than genesis 1 "us" being angels is not supported by ancient cultures. The ground as co creator of man is more probable.
Of course N.T. Wright has a trinitarian background so he reasons through that lense and also matter of factly mentions the prologue without qualification.
I am afraid that many only pay lip service to the wisdom tradition and what it implys
What "god" may mean only really has significance, if you already believe that the prologue is referring directly to Jesus in verse 1.
But John 8:58 tells a different story.also the account culminating in John 20:28.
https://youtu.be/WP5NuVAaOWM
Also you would have to counter Jesus own argument at John 3:34.
I imagine that NT Wright views John 1:14 as he did some years ago: most of this theological stuff does not change with time. At least, it doesn't quickly change.
We've been through the ground as co-creator idea, but the ground is not in God's image and likeness per se, nor is God in the ground's image or likeness. Jews have normally understood Gen. 1:26 to be a reference to the angels or divine council.
The scholarly consensus is that the Prologue is referring to Jesus. You may chalk that up to Trinitarian thought, but Witnesses believe the same thing. And the belief that the Prologue is about Jesus is an old belief in the church. But reading the Prologue while thinking it does not identify the Logos as the preexistent Jesus, who becomes enfleshed, makes less sense of the Prologue within the context of John's discourse. I don't believe that John 8:58 or 20:28 militate against reading the Prologue as I've suggested.
John 3:34 doesn't overthrow understanding Jesus as the Logos either. Scholars/lexicographers are well aware of John 3:34 and they still believe that it does not subvert belief in Jesus as the Logos. Read the entry for Logos in BDAG, for instance. We're also urged to interpret utterances within their respective context.
I don't agree with everything in the following quote from Godet, but I think part of what he writes about John's Prologue is correct:
To the completeness of His power to reveal, He must be, not only πρὸς τὸν θεόν, but θεός. Since He is θεός, He must, in some sense, become ἄνθρωπος in order that the revelation may be perfectly apprehended by men. He must be the θεὸς ἄνθρωπος. In this view of the author's thought, the third clause of John 1:1 unites itself with the suggestion of John 1:14, and then these two leading ideas pass on to John 1:17; and, joining that verse with themselves, they find their full expression in the words: Jesus Christ is the θεὸς - ἄνθρωπος . Hence it is, as we may believe, that the Prologue closes with the last statement of the 18th verse: The only-begotten Son (or—if that be the true reading—God only begotten) who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him.
https://www.marquette.edu/maqom/jesus.pdf
https://www.academia.edu/36399093/Sophia_and_Logos_in_the_Book_of_Wisdom_Wisdom_of_Solomon_
For a survey of interpretations regarding Genesis 1:26, see Gerhard Hasel's article.
None of his options refer to my point and the way he approaches them are his own interpretation, not the evidence at hand.
In the Enuma elish Marduk addresses the god Ea to reveal the plan of the creation of man "for the relief of the
gods."
Relife from what exactly? This is a propaganda piece trying to justify civilisation and its need for agriculture. The gods handing over the mattock to man.
Many of there "gods" were not gods, just like the earliest Greek conceptions. They were personifications of earth elements.
Personifications go back a very long way.
The Hasel article I'm talking about discusses interpretations of Genesis 1:26. He does talk about the ground interpretation. More later.
https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/auss/vol13/iss1/6/
I am referring to this article & his interpretation of Enuma elish.
https://biblehub.com/text/genesis/1-24.htm
https://biblehub.com/text/genesis/2-7.htm
Note, no mention of ground in Genesis 1 as a object created. Only mentioned in 2 as something that life springs out of.
Granted, numerous world myths anthropomorphize gods and use deities as props to explain the causes and origins of things. But should the early gods be reduced to the kind of personifications that you suggest above?
I doubt that is the case for all ANE deities, and I'm even more confident you can't make that move with Greek gods/goddesses. The literature is vast when it comes to studying Greek religion: read Walter Burkert, Gilbert Murray, and Humphrey Kitto for starters. We don't know all the causes for Greek religion but certain sources point us in the right direction.
The ground is not mentioned as a distinct object/term in Genesis 1, but its creation is implied by Gen. 1:1 and if God creates all things, then he creates the ground too. The ground is also part of the earth; so creating the earth includes creating the ground. Furthermore, what about Gen. 1:9-10?
Besides the objections I have lodged against the ground view, there is the problem of Gen. 1:26-27 saying God made male and female in his image. The woman was not made directly from the ground, but through Adam's rib. It's also mysterious why God would speak of the ground being made in his image and likeness.
I referred you to the Hasel article because of the ground interpretation you suggested. Whether you agree with his rebuttal or not, he does offer reasons to spurn that interpretation. He does address the point and refers to a few scriptures, even if you disagree with his arguments.
Hasel mentions Enuma Elish under another interpretation for Gen. 1:26, not for the ground interpretation, and it's only one sentence. The rest of the section never mentions the work again. Far as I can see, Hasel doesn't give an interpretation of Enuma Elish: the work is incidental to his article.
Lastly, I don't see how you arrive at that interpretation of Enuma Elish. Even granting that the gods are personifications, it does not follow that the story is a propaganda piece about agriculture. It will take more evidence to support that claim.
"The ground is also part of the earth" - your evidence that it was understood that way?
Most sumerian texts were propaganda pieces.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_the_hoe
This is relevant to this discussion.
https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hbd/l/land-ground.html
Both Adam and Cain tilled the ground. What were they tilling, if not the earth? YHWH is also the creator of the arable land, according to TNK.
https://www.bibleodyssey.org/en/people/related-articles/adam-adamah
Nothing you have said here contradicts my point. If anything it reinforces it. Does any account say that a man returns to the land rather than the dirt?
https://www.galaxie.com/article/str08-1-04 consider the implications, if this is correct.
https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sitchin/emesh_enten.htm
https://biblehub.com/text/genesis/2-6.htm
One thing being overlooked is that ground is part of the earth and used interchangeably for earth. You can't have ground without earth. "Earth" carries various senses, one of which is the ground. Convince me that that the Hebrews believed God did not create the ground.
As you know, Gen. 3:19 relates that man returns to ha adamah and apar.
Returning to the ground is the same as returning to the earth. Compare Numbers 16:30 with 16:32-33.
Another thing I don't feel you've explained is how the ground exists in God's image and likeness because that's what God says in Genesis 1:26. Additionally, ancient Hebrews did not believe that the ground was uncreated. As I said earlier, to create earth was to create the ground. Earth and ground are even used without sharp distinction at times in the TNK.
See the Gesenius entry here: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?t=kjv&strongs=h776
Compare Ezekiel 31:14-16, the earth below.
For clarification, I am not saying that god did not create ground (or humus as Alter puts it) but ground has far more life in it by mass than all life above it - even before the surface life was denuded by man. This life is never describe directly in the Bible but that does not mean that it did not exist before all other life (it just does not tell us).
This is why we come from it and return to it. Because that is literally true. Have you any idea just how much of our genome IS living soil? In many ways we never actually leave the soil, or if we do we die (that why tying to eradicate all corona virus, along with all others is suicidal!)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6780873/
The reality is that most, if not all bacterial infections that kill humans are not normally a problem when in correct balance.
I do not disagree with what Genesis 1:26 is saying but one needs to think about what it is actually saying or perhaps not saying - every other animal listed in that verse also comes from the ground but nothing is said about god breathing spirit into them as part of their creation so the breath is something more than air and I very much doubt that being imagers has anything to do with physical appearance per se.
One thing to think about, can grasses and a number of other plants grow without soil but not without bacteria? Compare Gen 1:11 - are the terms interchangeable here?
Ezekiel contains https://biblehub.com/hebrew/vor_953.htm and I am not going to attempt to compare what Ezekiel is saying to Genesis when he is obviously using a later concept.
SEE:- https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140218-salmon-fertilising-the-forests
So even fish return to the humus. Its all so interconnected, its staggering.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germ_theory_denialism
I find this page fascinating as Louis Pasteur said from his deathbed- "the microbe is nothing the terrain is everything".
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003140561630049X
This is just a taste of what we are learning about grasses.
Thanks for clarifying. Although we're not told that God breathed into the animal's nostrils, neshamah is used for both humans and animals: https://biblehub.com/hebrew/5397.htm
Being imagers likely has nothing to do with our physical appearance. I agree.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/artful-amoeba/the-world-s-largest-mining-operation-is-run-by-fungi/
And fungi are the primary driver for turning rock (the land) in soil (the dirt).
Again, no mention of this in the text.
Its worth looking at Joshua 10:40.
To address some of your comments:
We don't have to depend on Isaiah to see that erets and adamah are sometimes used in parallel fashion: see Numbers 16:29ff. But the expression I also was talking about in Ezekiel is not pit, but "under the earth" or "ground."
I don't want to argue about soil being alive, but it seems to me that the language must be qualified. Is Joshua 10:40 approximating such an idea? I doubt it. The breathing things were humans as the context makes clear.
There is a sense in which things are interconnected, no doubt. Yet not all life is the same.
Looking a little deeper at Joshua 10:40, I guess it includes animals and humans, but that's about it :-)
Compare the usages of קבר with Genesis 37:35 when no body existed.
As for Joshuah, did he kill ALL animals or just domestic ones?
My point is that the language in the creation account is not comprehensive and it is being used for a specific purpose that is generally being missed. We are the ones made from the ground and gods breath - not the animals (this is where the "US" comes in).
Is there anywhere that implies that animals come from and return to the ground?
Sheol - the common grave of mankind. Yes mankind, because no text that I can find mentions what happens to animals even though they go back to the ground too.
The account in Joshua says every breathing thing or “all of the breath” (note in the LEB). That is what he wiped out. One translation states that he left no survivors.
I agree that Genesis teaches humans are made from the ground, but the word for breath (of life) is used for humans and animals, not just for humans. I don't think it's right to say that the ground made or created anything, but either way, the breath of life is not restricted to humans.
Genesis 1:24 speaks of certain creatures emanating from the earth.
Genesis 2:19 (LEB): And out of the ground Yahweh God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and he brought each to the man[z] to see what he would call it. And whatever the man[aa] called that living creature was its name.
On the fate of humans and animals, see Eccl. 3:19-22.
Genesis 2:19 IMO is again talking about the domestic and clean animals (those associated with man). Where are the fish of the sea etc.?
"I don't think it's right to say that the ground made or created anything" - no we would not say that in contemporary scientific language. But this is not it. This is why we have to compare period and older documents. But this "US" is within the local text & "angels" are not, that's the leap.
There are many things that we would not do today or speak in terms of - like making a golden image of humanoids or boils to cure a plague - from rats?.
We had covered Joshua before regarding Jerico and a certain practice of wiping out the people and there domestic animals - can't remember the name of the practice at present. Note 10:1 NASB - Now it came about when Adoni-zedek king of Jerusalem heard that Joshua had captured Ai, and had [a]utterly destroyed it (>>just as he had done to Jericho and its king, so he had done to Ai and its king<<)
I am fairly confident that it does not mean every animal as this is like for like.
In fact is worth reading the hole chapter in the NASB: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua%2010&version=NASB
How many times is it "every person"? So it may not be talking about other animals at all.
Maybe the fish of the sea were created another way, and that is what Genesis indicates, but land animals are connected with the ground.
What part of Genesis even suggests that the ground created something? I'm not just relying on modern usage of terms: even from the Genesis perspective, it's doubtful that the ground created anything: God is the Maker and Creator.
Witnesses believe the "us" is God and Christ; the primary Jewish interpretation is the divine council or angels. Granted, the angels are not in the local text, but there's more to hermeneutics than the local text: we must take other factors into consideration. But the angelic view is not my stand anyway, and I still don't see how the ground is made in God's likeness or vice versa.
I think you're talking about cherem (herem) or the sacred ban. Initially, I did take Joshua 10:40 to be a discussion about humans, and I read the entire chapter. But some scholars at least, interpret the account to be about humans and animals. I don't have time to research this point, but it seems reasonable to me, unless we're to believe that Joshua killed all the humans while preserving the animals. Chapter 11 of Joshua also makes the animal suggestion appear to be plausible.
11:14 NASB - And all the spoils of these cities and the cattle, the sons of Israel took as their plunder; but they struck every person with the edge of the sword, until they had destroyed them. They left no one breathing.
Genesis 3:22
God and the serpent?
It is also interesting that the serpent eats the humus.
Admittedly, I'd like to research Joshua 10 & 11 more, but one thing that occurred to me is that the breathing things in Joshua are delineated as such by the Hebrew nephesh, a term used of humans and animals or just for life itself.
When you talk about the plural, don't forget Genesis 11:7. Later, there's Isaiah 6:8.
Yes, that's an interesting point about the serpent. I would also submit that when Alter used "humus," his reasons were literary, not to make some deep point about the ground. I'm not criticizing such attempts but just noting that Alter was trying to parallel human and humus like the Hebrew pun.
Here's an article to compare: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20504006?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
Literal snakes in the near East do not eat humus. They eat rodents living under and around agricultural fields.
For the tower of Babel see:-
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mudbrick
Ezekiel 13:10-12
Of what is the plaster made?
https://biblehub.com/text/genesis/4-10.htm
https://biblehub.com/hebrew/min_4480.htm
See this link and use the search term, humus: https://ohiostate.pressbooks.pub/enr3470/chapter/2-3/
As you know, humus also has a technical meaning in English that probably never occurred to the Hebrews.
For the text in Ezek. 13:, see https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel%2013:10-12&version=NET
Gen. 4:10 is poetry, not to be taken at face value. See Heb. 12:24; James 5:4.
Long note for Genesis 2:7-https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis+2%3A7&version=NET
John B. Taylor (TOTC on Ezekiel):
The wall which the people build is a flimsy party-wall (Heb. ḥayiṣ, a word found only here and described by Kimchi as ‘an inferior partition’). It stands for the empty hopes which they are erecting for themselves and which the false prophets are blandly endorsing. Whitewash (RSV correctly; untempered mortar, AV, RV, is based on an incorrect identification with a word meaning ‘unseasoned’) is closely akin to a root meaning ‘to plaster over’, used in Job 13:4; Psalm 119:69, of smearing a person with lies. So the people’s futile hopes are encouraged by the prophets’ lying lullabies of peace. It is a common failing for preachers to want to speak pleasing and appeasing words to their people, but if they are to be true to their calling they must be sure to receive and to impart nothing but God’s clear word, irrespective of the consequences. When church leaders encourage their people in sub-Christian standards or unbiblical ways they make themselves doubly guilty.
Joseph Blenkinsopp (Interpretation): The image is that of a shoddily built wall daubed with whitewash (crushed limestone mixed with water) to give it an appearance of solidity. The biblical terminology of “daubing” and “whitewashing” implies the creation of an illusory and specious appearance of truth designed to conceal a fundamental inauthenticity. In this sense, for example, Job’s “friends” are described as “daubers of falsehood” (Job 13:4). In this instance, the prophet-dauber not only acquiesces but actively cooperates in a collective exercise in self-deception. The situation is familiar. We know that appearance is not reality, but we hope that if enough people accept the appearance, it will somehow become reality; and, indeed, it does become reality for us. Unfortunately for us, however, reality does not always cooperate; there are circumstances beyond our control. The storm clouds are already gathering, the deluge strikes, and the wall is washed away, together with its veneer of plaster. The prophetic specialist in self-deception is revealed for what he is.
"Gen. 4:10 is poetry", but genesis 1 & 2 are not ????
https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/humus
Lost my train of thought on Ezekiel. I think what I am getting at can be shown from Leviticus 14:41 & this paper https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0008276
A mixture of soil, straw and cattle dung.
Applicable to job 13:4 also.
How the text is utilised in the NT has no bearing on the original text. Does Hebrews even mention the ground?
Any connection to James 5:4 is highly tenuous.
Should I list how many times the the NT appropriates OT verses out of there original context?
The is little dispute about the Hebrew - http://dssenglishbible.com/genesis%204.htm
Genesis 1 & 2 have poetic elements, but they're not totally poetic. Since when does blood literally cry from the ground or at all? See also Revelation 6:9-11.
What you state about interpreting texts is a hermeneutical issue: however, Christianity developed from Judaism, so the two are connected. Moreover, according to Christian belief, Christ is the fulfillment of TNK.
Yet that is not the point I was trying to make anyway. I cited Hebrews because it's clearly influenced by Genesis and it illustrates how figurative language about blood works. James 4 provides another example of something crying out to God, but it's figurative.
I'm well aware of how the NT reappropriates or contextualized Hebrew texts, but that's not the case with the Hebrews or James text. Besides,
I never disputed the Hebrew.
We've gotten away from discussing John 1:1, so I will be closing the thread shortly.
In revelation it is not the blood crying - but no matter.
I disagree - "I cited Hebrews because it's clearly influenced by Genesis and it illustrates how figurative language about blood works. James 4 provides another example of something crying out to God, but it's figurative."
These are how it works for the NT writers appropriation. Any thing in the inter intertestamental to prove a continuation/progression?
This discussion has everything to do with John 1:1 if you contest that the "US" in Genesis is Jesus (Michael).
Since when do serpents eat soil?
I see that you still don't really get my point but I will keep researching and come back to this later.
Here again, I cite Revelation because it mentions souls crying from underneath the altar. How do they cry out? Why underneath the altar? See the Revelation Climax book.
The intertestamental material will not demonstrate a progression, but this is just how language works. The writer of Hebrews clearly alludes to Genesis, but insists that Christ is superior. There is also good reason to believe that the Hebrew bible and idioms shaped James. But to the main point, why think the Genesis writer is saying that the blood literally cried from the ground? Where's the evidence for that view?
I don't contest the Jesus understanding for Genesis 1:26 and humus has nothing to do with John 1:1.n
I got one better. Since when do humans eat soil or dust?
Why don't you just spell out your point? I don't see the connection with John 1:1 and soil.
Compare Isaiah 65:25
Psalm 72:9; Micah 7:17.
Isaiah 65:25 is an interesting one. So the serpent is already eating the dirt in Genesis as a punishment but now he is going to be made to eat the dirt as nothing to do with a punishment?
https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/eating-dirt
Soil is life.
IMO Psalms 72:9 & Isaiah 49:23.
https://biblehub.com/hebrew/raglayich_7272.htm
You know the foot on the neck imagery from Egypt?
As far as Micah 7:17 goes, it is quite literal for the snake and all other reptiles - but that is not eating. But I think the crawling from the holes analogy is the main point of comparison.
I think Isa. 65:25 and Gen. 3:14-15 are linked: the serpent of Isaiah alludes to the Genesis serpent. Both verses are about punishment, plus on a deeper level, Satan is addressed in Gen. 3:14.
Notice that geophagia is not healthy for humans; it can lead to sickness or death. It reminds me of the saying, "Go eat dirt," which is not meant to be complimentary and it's also not meant in a literal sense. There is a reason why most of us don't eat or have never eaten dirt. But the point of my questions were that the eating dust language (eating humus) is metaphorical.
Isa. 49:23 is a good verse for this discussion. I take it to be metaphorical too, and I'm familiar with the Egyptian foot on the next imagery.
On Micah 7:17, I agree with your comments, but I think the verse is referring to the enemies of YHWH. Licking the dust in this verse does not refer to eating for YHWH's enemies: it's defeat or death.
Pulpit Commentary: [Micah] Verse 17. - They shall lick the dust like a serpent (Genesis 3:14; Isaiah 65:25). The enemies of God's people "shall lick the dust" (Psalm 72:9), shall be reduced to the utmost degradation (Isaiah 49:23).
While I disagree with Ellicott's tendencies toward Trinitarianism, his appeal to Isa. 40:13 makes sense as a reason for turning down the ground interpretation of Gen. 1:26.
Isaiah 65:25 is about passivity not punishment. One only has to look at the other animals in the verse - The wolf and the lamb will graze together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110602162820.htm
I would guess that Micah 7:17 is using the term in a similar way to צֵאַ֣ת (unfortunately the usage is to limited to know exactly what it means).
Speaking of ground, I have to go care for my yard. It's a semi-nice day here. A verse can have opposing or antithetical ideas. Not all of Isa. 65 is about passivity and even 65:25 is open to other interpretations/understandings besides literal animals.
I think your suggestion about Micah 7:17 is possible, but not enough data, as you say.
For Isaiah, compare 65:20 which refers to some kind of punishment.
A quick check reveals that many commentators believe Isa. 65:25 alludes to Gen. 3:14 which is about punishment or a sentence being passed on the serpent.
Google "geophagia unhealthy."
It's not safe to engage in this practice and I've never done it or known any of my friends to do it. Eat dirt is a putdown, not a suggestion to go consume soil. There's plenty of evidence that we should not lick the dust. It's not life-sustaining in that sense.
For a fresh approach to the question of "US":-
2 Sam 24:14 Then David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Let us now fall into the hand of the Lord, for His mercies are great; but do not let me fall into human hands.”
Note the "US" singular and "me"
2 Samuel 16:20,21 20 Then Absalom said to Ahithophel, “Give your advice. What should >>we<< do?” 21 Ahithophel said to Absalom, “Have relations with your father’s concubines, whom he has left behind to take care of the house; then all Israel will hear that you have made yourself repulsive to your father. The hands of all who are with you will also be strengthened.” 22 So they pitched a tent for Absalom on the roof, and Absalom had relations with his father’s concubines in the sight of all Israel.
Note the "We" singular
Add all to this Genesis 6:6 where we are back to singular.
Either way there is no evidence of angelic being(s) here.
Well that would make us the only animal including ones of similar physiology that do not eat soil to some extent.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6780873/
1) Sorry to demur, but I'm not sure that "us" is singular above, nor that "we" is either.
2) You know there are numerous suggestions for "us," but all I was saying earlier is that the most popular Jewish interpretation seems to be angels/divine council.
3) C. Westermann argues that the "us" should be understood of a singular subject, but folks shoot him down too.
4) Witnesses say Jehovah is speaking to Jesus: Trinitarians add one more, the holy spirit. And around we go.
5) I believe humans are unique: we're also made of star dust.
But see https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&sxsrf=ALeKk01Cb55N5TSnb1zZYfS7INi_zQ02CQ%3A1613768970372&ei=CikwYL6JFq3n_QbVo5LYCQ&q=geophagia+unhealthy&oq=geophagia+unhealthy&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyBggAEBYQHjoHCAAQsAMQQzoECAAQQzoCCABQ6jBY00hg301oAXACeACAAY4GiAG5IpIBCzItMS4wLjMuMS4zmAEAoAEBqgEHZ3dzLXdpesgBCsABAQ&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwi-tunx7fbuAhWtc98KHdWRBJsQ4dUDCAw&uact=5
For evidence that geophagia is not healthy. If someone wants to eat dirt/humus/soil, I guess it's on them. I'd just tell them to be careful.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5579067/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1672022919300592
https://atlasbiomed.com/blog/what-enterotype-are-you/
https://www.parasite-journal.org/articles/parasite/pdf/2021/01/parasite200114.pdf
So as most thing are - more complicated.
None of the stuff that I read above encouraged people to eat dirt or dust. Look at the many articles that warn against such practices: I don't find it complicated at all. As Witnesses often say, the truth is simple.
See the dissertation here: https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1102&context=dissertations
Particularly, page 232 and following, which describes Genesis 4:10 as graphic imagery to emphasize a point about shed blood.
Living in the Shadow of Cain: An Article on James 5:4
See https://www.jstor.org/stable/25442500?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
More complicated https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3020602/
Just one example of the level of complexity. There are many other plants that do this. Eat soul and meat together I another condition alltogether - https://www.dailynews.co.tz/news/2018-07-035b3b8ed24fae3.aspx#:~:text=Research%20studies%20have%20proven%20that,including%20hookworm%2C%20tapeworms%20and%20pinworms.&text=The%20Nigerian%20study%20concluded%20that,and%20without%20significant%20side%20effects.
Regarding the dissertation you just posted. I suggest you look at page 48
The idea that blood exposed on the ground calls for vengeance recurs frequently in the Old Testament (Job 16:18; Isa 26:21; Ezek 24:7-8; 2 Kgs
9:26) .
Look at all those verses in Hebrew & tell me what is fundamentally wrong with his assertion, knowing the terms employed and paying particular attention to Ezekiel and the covering over?
Isn't it the case that Genesis 1:24 tells us he made the creatures of the earth from the ha’eres not from the aphar”(dust) or the adamah (soil)?
I brought up the dissertation for a different reason than what you mention, but I did read the verses in Hebrew and English. I guess you could find a few things wrong with his claim but I'm not sure that I see a major problem here. You might be picking on the fact that erets is used rather than adamah, but I don't see that as problematic for his claim. As a matter of fact, this answers your question about Gen. 1:24: Gesenius and other sources tell us that erets sometimes refers to the ground (adamah) or they're used without sharp distinction as I demonstrated from Numbers 16. Aphar likewise comes into play with adamah/erets.
I also researched James 5:4 last night and many commentators see a connection 5:4 and Abel's blood crying from the ground.
Revelation 18:24 and if you have access to Von Rad's Genesis commentary, see his remarks on Gen. 4:10.
In numbers, I am not sure why you think there is no or little distinction. The order in the text is very specific and expected for a descent to Sheol. If arets had come before adamah that would have been a different matter. They would have been in the wrong order. Look again at apar in Ezekiel.
In modern scientific terms adamah is a thin skin on the planet. 6 inches to 1 foot deep. Then the rock or sub soil and then in the Hebrew mind Sheol which is actually linked to tehom.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJNBsFxPEJ8 - the last minute or so is useful.
I'm saying that erets and adamah are used alternately/interchangeably in Numbers 16.
16:30-ha adamah
16:31-ha adamah
16:32-ha erets opens its mouth.
I see how apar is used in Ezekiel, but I don't think it voids the point of the dissertation. Maybe I'm wrong.
As you know, we have to look at what adamah meant to the ancients. There is good reason to think that adamah could sometimes be used similarly to erets.
See the link, https://books.google.com/books?id=ymv6CQAAQBAJ&pg=PT97&lpg=PT97&dq=synonym+eretz+and+adamah&source=bl&ots=iwD205qu7x&sig=ACfU3U21FfH3OlviH1LgEWz3FX3ErlgrUw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjqwKXDpfnuAhVCXc0KHXgjDdk4ChDoATAJegQIExAD#v=onepage&q=synonym%20eretz%20and%20adamah&f=false
Timothy R. Ashley commenting on Numbers 16:31-34 in the NICOT:
Unlike the test described for the congregation of Korah that took place over two days, this test comes to a conclusion immediately, as he fin- ished speaking all these words (v. 31). The ground (’ăḏāmâ, the same word as in the prediction of the event in v. 30) was split open.⁶⁹ For literary variety, v. 32 uses a synonymous term earth (’ereṣ):⁷⁰ the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them (as in v. 30). The them in- cludes their houses, i.e., their households (cf. Gen. 42:19, 33; 45:18 for a similar use of bayiṯ, “house”), i.e., their wives and children (v. 27).
You have to look at other words in play and the texts that came before.
https://biblehub.com/lexicon/genesis/3-19.htm
https://biblehub.com/lexicon/genesis/3-20.htm
We have הָאָדָם֙ in verse 32 - the MEN return to the dirt but the goods do not. This has complexity on a number of levels.
I think that the translation of תַּחְתֵּיהֶֽם׃ in verse 31 is questionable - https://biblehub.com/hebrew/tachteihem_8478.htm
Being eaten by erets and eaten by adamah are not one but two things.
I have also said many times that in the Hebrew word plays you have words of related meaning but not saying the same thing - look hard enough and this can be demonstrated over and over.
I have not done it yet but looking at the relationship of then adamah is used in relation to ha adam, adam and any other derivative.
The differentiation is most prominent here :- https://biblehub.com/text/genesis/2-6.htm
Compare Job 36:27,28 אָדָ֬ם
But doesn't rain fall on everything not just man? You know the saying - water is life but so is soil. There is nothing random about the word selections.
Job, where man is not mentioned.
https://biblehub.com/text/job/5-10.htm
Especially suitable for men to live:-
https://biblehub.com/text/joshua/23-13.htm
https://biblehub.com/text/joshua/23-15.htm
https://biblehub.com/text/joshua/23-16.htm
Not also where erets is used in Joshua.
Dust above like Ezekiel
https://biblehub.com/text/joshua/7-6.htm
Nothing exhaustive, but a pattern emerges.
Are you sure the goods of Numbers 16:32 do not return to the soil/dirt?
I'm not saying erets and adamah are completely synonymous, but there does not always seem to be a sharp distinction between the terms.
Yes, studies have been done on parallelism and paronomasia in the TNK/OT: that is also what Alter was trying to replicate in his translation. See the thick work by James Kugel for starters.
Words can be picked by a writer for different reasons including for rhetorical effect and to vary the writing. Moises Silva talks about semantic neutrality that we witness in the Bible: distinctions are not flattened with words, but we see plenty of overlap between terms.
No one is arguing that erets and adamah uniformly mean the same thing in all contexts: we have to take the occurrences on an individual basis. Admittedly, there's a lot going on in Job--it's poetry, potentially allusive, look at the context, etc.
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Yes-We-Can-(Hyperbolize)!-Ideals%2C-Rhetoric%2C-and-Silverman/204887b40b7323fe785f8a375dcf37b0b685fbea
Have you read this?
This is possible in later texts when the former becomes part of culture and language. The point is, should one use those later text to impose there usages on the former?
My point is, where does the meaning of the terms overlap upto and including Joshua? If it happens later than this I would not give it too much weight.
Compare the account in numbers with https://biblehub.com/text/genesis/4-11.htm
No, I have not read that article, but we can't just assume that later usages have a 1:1 correspondence with earlier usages. Talk about complexity: lexical semantics is that way.
When I spoke of overlap, I meant within the same context or time period. My example was Numbers 16, so I was not comparing usages that greatly diverged in time from one another.
The same could be said for a comparison of usages between Genesis and Numbers: a short period of time doesn't necessarily alter how words are used.
Gen. 4:11 is a helpful text to consider.
I can't remember if I also posted the article, https://hebrewcollege.edu/blog/when-the-earth-opened-her-mouth/
Unlss anyone wants to add something about John 1:1, I will be locking this entry soon.
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