Jason wrote:James, thanks for the reply. You make some interesting points. BUT...I am going to respectfully counter them. I hope all who read my posts realize that I am not coming from any particular set of beliefs and that I am not arguing from a position of already having made up my mind. My questions and arguments are genuinely and sincerely to share and accelerate my understanding. Please do not spare me any exegeses that would deal a crushing blow to any of my conclusions and I in turn hope that no one in the forum will misunderstand me if I do the same.
Ok, so firstly, I would point out James that Yahoah did not say "I am happy with just the man (adam)" or anything similar to that. He did not finish the 6th day until after he had created both man and women, both of them interestingly enough, Yahoah created with sexual organs and the ability to procreate, at which time and only at that time Yahoah beheld that his creation was very good.
True Yahowah did not say that, I never said He did. My only point was that the statement that it is not good for man to be alone was not in relation to God, but in relation to Adam. I infer, rightly or wrongly, that Yahowah would have been happy with just Adam based on the fact that He did not initially give Adam a partner. If Yahowah had wanted to have a bunch of friends he could have placed hundreds of people in Eden, but He only placed 1 there initially, then when He saw that that one was not happy, or whatever the reason being that it was not good for Adam to be alone, that is when he brought in a second.
But really rather Yahowah would have been satisfied with a relationship only with Adam is not that important. It is ancillary to the main point which is that God is interested in quality of relationships and not quantity, which I think we would both agree on.
Jason wrote:It is not as if Yah created everything and finished, and then afterwards realized that the man needed a partner. No no, I think not.
Nor do I. Yahowah knew from the start that it would not be good for man to be alone, but he did not create them at the same time still. I think the reason is simple, it was for our benefit. It is not good for man to be alone while it would seem to many of us to be self-evident isn’t. This was an important insight that Yahowah wanted in His Towrah. Yahowah wanted us to know that man needs woman, look at the results of institutions which force celibacy on its members.
Jason wrote:I do agree that the creation of women could very well be viewed as Yahoah creating her for adam's sake, but not exclusively. I think it is more consistent with the record that Yahoah was very intentional about creating women for his own purposes from the very beginning. In fact, do not forget that she was also created in Yahoah's image.
But the stated reason for her creation was that it was not good for man to be alone. And again my only point was to say that the verse you cited did not fit your point.
Again, rather Yahowah was content with just Adam or not is irrelevant, because even if He was that is not the situation, and He knew that would not be the situation. He knew when He created Adam that Adam would need Chawah, and He knew they would eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, He knew that they would be separated from Him and that He would have to redeem them. So it is pointless for us to argue over rather He would have been content with just Adam or not.
james wrote:This idea that Yahoah was content with his creation halfway through the sixth day is completely unfounded and inconsistent.
I fail to see how it is inconsistent. It seems completely consistent, while not conclusive, with the evidence.
Jason wrote:Secondly, the masculine/feminine argument does not lead anywhere rational in my estimation. I agree that context is important James but I don't see it being "king" in your interpretation here. In context it seems obvious to me that the subject of the verbs is "ha-adam(the man)" and the object of the verbs is "gan(garden)", not the name of the garden "eden". It is irrelevant to me James that a professor somewhere thinks eden is a masculine noun. I think it is wise to be careful not to rely too much on study tools for shaping our understanding of the text. I don't see what is so unreasonable about saying that the man was taken and placed in the garden of eden to cultivate and carefully observe it, especially since it is reenforcing verse 5 of the same chapter which says that there was NO MAN TO "ABAD"(work,labour,cultivate) "HA-ADAM-AH"(the ground).
I was merely pointing out something that I thought was interesting and was by no means implying that it was anything other than an observation gleamed off of a reexamination of a verse I had not looked at in some time.
The gender assignment was not added by some professor somewhere just because they thought hey why not call this masculine. Hebrew like most languages other than English has gender modifications to words. I.E. Yeled/boy Yeledah/girl, ish/man ishah/woman. We don’t have this in English we say boy and girl man and woman, but most languages have gender assignments where a root word is modified to fit the gender.
Study tools are the only way we can really know what was written since none of us speak Hebrew, let alone Scriptural Hebrew. So what would be your alternative to relying on study tools? To rely on English translations? To rely on scholars, certainly not. To rely some inherent intuition about what the text means? The text itself and the best tools you can get your hands on to study are the only things to rely upon.
And there is nothing unreasonable about saying that Adam was placed in Eden to cultivate and observe it, I never said there was. Again I was merely pointing out what I thought was an interesting observation when I reexamined the text. In my experience Yah communicates most everything on multiple levels, and if I see two ways to translate a verse and both convey truths I tend to think both were meant.
Jason wrote:now, third, regarding Isaiah 65, you make some good sound arguments here James. I will say this though, I don't look at definitions in the same way as you are doing here. I don't think of Chadash as being this-english-word here and that-english-word there.
Chadash is a broad concept in Hebrew, our only way to understand it is by translating it into our native language English. In Hebrew like in English however words have different meanings in different context this is conveyed when translating by using different words in different places. There are 3 major concepts conveyed by the word Chadash, which is being conveyed is completely dependent upon the context. It can mean:
- To renew, rebuild, rejuvenate, repair etc. In some contexts. It’s used in this context in Yashayahu 61 to speak of the rebuilding of a city.
- Something which is new or fresh. I.E. In Shemowth 1 we are told of a chadash/new sovereign coming to power who did not know Yowseph.
- Month. Chadash is the Hebrew word for month. In Shemowth 13 they are told they are going out in the chadash of abib, the month of abib.
Translations are a way of conveying a message between one language and another. In English we have different words for renew, new and month, but in Hebrew one word is used, and context dictates its meaning when translating we examine the words use in context and determine the best way to convey the meaning of that word in English. So depending on the context we translate chadash as renewed, new or month.
In English if I say something is cool, context dictates what I mean by it, and someone translating it to another language would likely use different words to convey the different meanings. It’s just the nature of words and languages.
Jason wrote:Context is important but lets not forget what language the context is in. Remember that it is not the english that is defining the word but rather the word of origin, hebrew, is defining our english terms, which CAN have multiple english definitions simultaneously.
Agreed, and I am using the context of the Hebrew language. And it’s not just multiple English definitions, the Hebrew definition varies depending upon the context in which the word is used. Chadash has multiple meanings dependent upon the context in Hebrew. Here the context of Chadash is Bara and lo zakar. There is no way for Chadash to convey renewed or month in this context the only thing it can convey in this context is new. There are only three concepts which can be conveyed by Chadash the concept of renewing, repairing and restoring, the concept of something new, and the concept of month. In the context of bara/creating a chadash heaven and earth and the first not being zakar/remembered/recalled
In this context month makes zero sense, I am creating a month heaven and month earth…
In this context new makes complete sense, I am creating a new heaven and new earth and the first will not be remembered or recalled.
In this context renewed makes no sense, I am creating a renewed heaven and a renewed earth and the first will not be remembered or recalled.
So every bit of the context of the verse, the context of bara/creating and the context of it being the second since the first will not be zakar/remembered all dictate that Chadash convey the concept of new. There is no other reasonable or rational way to view this.
Jason wrote:In addition to our lexicon amplifications, when ignoring the niqqud, this word also means set apart. Just because we can't fit a concept into our english frame of mind doesn't necessarily mean that some of the english definitions, which DO have the same origin, conflict.
I’m sorry Jason, but I don’t understand at all what you are trying to say here, I have read it a dozen times now and am still clueless. Niqqud does not appear anywhere in this verse or any of the surrounding verses, that I can see. If you are using it to make a point I think I am missing it.
Jason wrote:For example, as a participant in the covenant James you are set apart unto Yahoah, correct? You are made immortal, restored, rebuilt renewed from imperfect to perfect, empowered, enriched ect., are you not? Yahoah, by fulfilling his covenant promises will cause all these changes to occur to your circumstances and character and he will forget your past transgressions, correct? Now, I ask you, is he going to destroy you and make a new James for his new earth?
This is a complete non-sequitur. Yashayahu 65 is saying that Yahowah is going to create a new heaven and new earth, and that the former will not be remembered or recalled, this has nothing to do with how He will work with us. Rather the current universe is destroyed or not is also irrelevant because if it is still in existence and we will not remember or recall it then so be it, it’s kind of pointless to keep it here if no one will remember or recall it, but since Yahowah doesn’t specifically say I am going to destroy the heaven and earth and create a new heaven and new earth I’m not going to be dogmatic about them being destroyed, but it makes the most sense to me since keeping it when no one remembers or recalls it would be pointless.