Answering the Claim that Interpreting Genesis 1:2 as a Dependent Clause is too Cumbersome in Hebrew

  

. . . there is no question that the dependent clause translation is cumbersome. However, as astonishing as it may seem, far from being an argument against the dependent clause translation, I actually believe the rareness of its syntax is [a] powerful argument in its favor. How can that be? This wordy style conforms beautifully with Genesis’ original literary context—the style in which other surrounding cultures in Mesopotamia began their creation stories.

 

The Babylonian creation story Enuma Elish likely dates as far back as the second millennium BC. Since biblical scholars widely believe that Genesis 1 was edited during or after Judah’s Babylonian captivity, it is plausible that Genesis 1’s editor(s) were familiar with it. Interestingly, tablet I, lines 1-10 opens the Babylonian account with similar complex back-dropping following a dependent clause as we have observed in Genesis 1:

 

Dependent temporal clause	When on high heaven was not named, and the earth beneath a name did not bear--
Parenthetical information	primeval Apus [fresh water] was their progenitor, life-giving Tiamat [salt water], the bearer of all; their waters together they mingled, no canebrake, yet formed, no marsh discoverable-- when of the gods none had appeared, names were not borne, destines not decided.
Main clause	the gods were given shape within them, Lahmu and Lahamu made to appear, names they bore.

 

As the Assyriologist E.A. Speiser points out, like Genesis 1:1-3, this passage begins with a dependent temporal clause and follows with 6 lines of parenthetical clauses before arriving at the main clause in lines 9-10 (Genesis: Introduction, Translation and Notes [New York: Doubleday, 1964], 12, 19). Overly complex? Or literary style?

 

There is another Akkadian creation text that scholars widely recognize as having important similarities to the Genesis creation account—Atrahasis. Like Genesis, Atrahasis has humanity created from the earth to cultivate the ground and features a description of the Great Flood. Incredibly, it too opens with a dependent clause followed by a parenthetical clause before it arrives at its main clause:

 

Dependent temporal clause	When the gods like men Bore the work and suffered the toil--
Parenthetical information	The toil of the gods was great, The work was heavy, the distress was much--
Main clause	The Seven great Anunaki [gods] were making the Igigi [lower gods] suffer the work . . .

 

Another creation story discovered in the ruined capital of the Assyrian empire called KAR 4 dates to about 800 BC. Its opening lines also take the general literary style we have been observing. Again, those who allege that Genesis 1 should not be translated as a dependent clause because its resulting parenthetical lines are awkwardly long should observe where this same structure is several times longer in this creation text:

 

Dependent temporal clause	When heaven had been separated from the earth, the distant trusty twin,
Parenthetical information	(And) the mother of the goddesses had been brought into being; when the earth had been brought forth (and) the earth had been fashioned; When the destinies of heaven and earth had been fixed; (When) trench and canal had been given (their) right courses, (And) the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates had been established
Main clause	(Then) Anu, Enlil, šamaš, (and) Ea, the great gods, (And) the Anunnaki, the great gods, Seated themselves in the exalted sanctuary and recounted among themselves what had been created.

 

. . . You may have heard before that Genesis contains a so-called “second creation account” in Genesis 2:4b-7. Incredibly, even that passage follows the general format scholars are endorsing for translating Genesis 1:1-3. That is, like Genesis 1:1-3, it opens with a dependent temporal clause followed by an extended parenthetical insertion before it reaches the main clause:

 

Dependent temporal clause	4b When the Lord God made earth and heaven--
Parenthetical information	5 Now no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet to grow, since the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth and there was no man to work the ground 6 (but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground)--
Main clause	7 The Lord God formed man from dust of the ground . . .

 

Looking at this passage, the respected Hebraist Bill T. Arnold agrees in the New Cambridge Bible Commentary, “The syntax of 2:4b-7 is not unlike that of 1:1-3” (Genesis, New Cambridge Bible Commentary [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009], 56).

 

So, the dependent clause opening of Genesis is indeed odd and cumbersome when we compare it across the syntax of the Bible as a whole, but it is typical in a generic sense when we compare it to other creation narratives from Genesis 1’s ancient Mesopotamian literary context and the “second creation account” occurring in the immediately following chapter. (Ben Stanhope, (Mis)Interpreting Genesis: How the Creation Museum Misunderstands the Ancient Near Eastern Context of the Bible [Scarab Press, 2020], 76-80)