Friday, August 23, 2024

Nicholas Wyatt on Isaiah 45:17

 

Other biblical passages, in Deutero-Isaiah, do however appear to express the

idea of creatio ex nihilo .  Isa 45:7 reads:

 


yôṣēr ʾôr ûbôrēʾ ḥōšek

ʿōśeh šālôm ûbôrēʾ rāʿ

ʾănî yhwh ʿōśeh kol-ʾēlleh

The fashioner of light and the creator* of darkness,

the maker of well-being and the creator* of woe,

I am Yahweh, the maker of all these things!

 

Isa 43:1, 15 speak in similar language of the creation of man:

 

kōh-ʾāmar yhwh
bôraʾăkā yaʿăqōb
wǝyōṣerkā yiśrāʾēl
. . .

ʾănî yhwh qǝdôšǝkem
bôrēʾ yiśrāʾēl malkǝkem

Thus says Yahweh,
your creator*, Jacob,
and your fashioner, Israel
. . .
I am Yahweh, your Holy one,
the creator* of Israel, your king.

 

 

 

These passages, more or less contemporary with Genesis 1, use the same key cosmogonic terms, bārāʾ, yāṣar, and ʿāśāh and evidently belong to the same intellectual milieu as Genesis 1. But do they presuppose the doctrine? (Understanding bôrēʾ as “creator*” in each case is contentious.) The first of these passages, Isa 45:7, is the key one, but it cannot formally be said to do so, since it remains silent on the question of whether light and darkness are made out of nothing, or whether they are simply distinguished. As far as Gen 1:4 is concerned, which clearly has a bearing on this verse, they are explicitly separated. This suggests that we should discern the same nuance here. Here we may examine the etymology of the verb bārāʾ, noting incidentally that it is roughly synonymous with the other terms, the b word to the a words yāṣar and ʿāśāh. The three terms are used throughout the narrative of Gen 1:1–2:4a, along with one other key term, hibdîl, “divide”. The other three words here (besides bārāʾ) all presuppose the prior existence of something to be manufactured, transformed, or divided, or named (qārāʾ): the clay implicit with yāṣar (as in Gen 2:7), the division or distinguishing of the light and dark, or upper and lower waters (hibdîl ), and so forth. (Nicholas Wyatt, “Distinguishing Wood and Trees in Waters: Creation in Biblical Thought,” in Conversations on Canaanites and Biblical Themes: Creation, Chaos and Monotheism, ed. Rebecca S. Watson and Adrian H. W. Curtis [Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2024], 215-16)

 

 

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