Friday, August 23, 2024

Nicholas Wyatt on Genesis 3:4-5, 22

Nicholas Wyatt rendered Genesis 3:4-5, 22 thusly:

 

Then the snake to the woman, ‘You will certainly not die!’ For God knows that on the day that you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will become gods, knowing all things.’  . . . And Yahweh-God said, ‘Look! The man has become one of us, knowing all things. . . . (Nicholas Wyatt, Space and Time in the Religious Life of the Near East [Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001], 243)

 

In a note to the above, Wyatt adds that:

 

‘Become gods’: The Hebrew (kēlōhîm) is usually translated as a comparison, ‘like gods’. It is stronger than that. Similarly in 3:22, ‘one of us’. (Ibid., 244 n. 4)

 

Wyatt references the following from Waltke and O’Connor’s work on biblical Hebrew syntax:

 

(2) Agreement in kind is also marked with k (# 3), cf. 'Joshua is like Moses as a prophet.' In this English example, 'as a prophet' specifies the point of comparison or tertium quid, the "third thing" in terms of which the likeness is proposed. The "third thing" need not be specified—it is often evident from the discourse; in poetry the point of comparison may be left vague in order to allow an analogy to open up, inducing the reader to engage the analogy and find not one but many contacts between the things compared. Agreement in manner or norm (cf. 'Joshua is a prophet in the manner of Moses') is akin to agreement in kind (## 4–7). (3) The logical outcome of comparison is correspondence or identity, cf. 'Moses loves Joshua as (he does) himself.' The agreement of the things compared is complete, insofar as the discourse is concerned (kaph veritatis; # 8). Identity constructions formed with k often involve a double use of k: in discourse about X, we find either kX kY or, more often, kY kX(## 9–10); both are used in legal materials. The second of these patterns has come into English: 'Like father, like son.' (Bruce K. Waltke and M. O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax [Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1990, 2004], 203)

 

 

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