While an advocate of creation ex nihilo and a critic of reading Gen 1:1 in the construct state, Bruce K. Waltke argued that the construct state cannot be critiqued based on syntactical grounds:
Syntactical arguments.
Wellhasuen rejected taking verse 1 as a dependent
clause because, in his words: “this complicated syntactical
construction is desperate.” (J. Wellhausen, Prolegomena to the History of
Ancient Israel, [Cleveland: Meridan Book, 1957], p. 387) Cassuto also
rejected it because, as he said: “the hyh would have been omitted in
verse 2; cf. 1 Samuel 3:2-4.” (U. Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Genesis,
trans. By Israel Abrahamas, Part 1 [Jerusalem: The Magnes Press], p. 20) But
even though these two scholars objected to the construction [on] syntactical
grounds, their arguments are baseless. In the first place, Wellhausen is clearly
mistaken because close parallels can be found to this analysis of 1:1-3 in
2:4b-7 and in the ancient account of creation. The structure of 2:4b-7 appears
almost identical to the one proposed for 1:3:
Protasis:
“When Yahweh God made earth and heaven . . .” 2:4b
Parenthesis: “now no herb of the field . . .” 2:5-6
Apodosis: “. . . then Yahweh formed man” 2:7
Speiser
points out the similar parallel structure in Enūma Elish:
Dependent temporal clause: “When on high the heaven
had not been made
Firm ground below had not been called by name” (lines 102)
Parenthetic clauses: “ . . . and Mummu-Tiamat, she bore them all . . .” (lines 3-8)
Main clause: “Then it was the gods were formed within them.” (line 9)
Moreover, against Cassuto we note that the copula is often
present in disjunctive clauses of the pattern waw + noun + verb. To cite
but two illustrations of many:
“And Jonah went to Nineveh . . . (Now Nineveh was a
great city [wənînəwē hoytâ ʿîr-gədōwlāh]) . . .” (Jonah 3:3).
“And Yahweh said unto Satan . . . (Now Joshua was clothed
[wîhōwšuaʿ hāyâ lābuš]) . . .” (Zechariah 3:2-3)
We conclude, therefore, that no objection can be raised
against this interpretation on syntactical grounds. (Bruce K. Waltke, Creation
and Chaos: An Exegetical and Theological Study of Biblical Cosmogony [Portland,
Oreg.: Western Conservative Baptist Seminary, 1974], 30-31)
