God is not the Creator, claims academic
family
God is not the Creator, claims academic
The notion of God as the Creator is wrong, claims a top academic, who
believes the Bible has been wrongly translated for thousands of years.
By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent
Published: 5:45PM BST 08 Oct 2009
Professor Ellen van Wolde, a respected Old Testament scholar and author,
claims the first sentence of Genesis "in the beginning God created the
Heaven and the Earth" is not a true translation of the Hebrew.
She claims she has carried out fresh textual analysis that suggests the
writers of the great book never intended to suggest that God created the
world -- and in fact the Earth was already there when he created humans
and animals.
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Prof Van Wolde, 54, who will present a thesis on the subject at Radboud
University in The Netherlands where she studies, said she had
re-analysed the original Hebrew text and placed it in the context of the
Bible as a whole, and in the context of other creation stories from
ancient Mesopotamia.
She said she eventually concluded the Hebrew verb "bara", which is used
in the first sentence of the book of Genesis, does not mean "to create"
but to "spatially separate".
The first sentence should now read "in the beginning God separated the
Heaven and the Earth"
According to Judeo-Christian tradition, God created the Earth out of
nothing.
Prof Van Wolde, who once worked with the Italian academic and novelist
Umberto Eco, said her new analysis showed that the beginning of the
Bible was not the beginning of time, but the beginning of a narration.
She said: "It meant to say that God did create humans and animals, but
not the Earth itself."
She writes in her thesis that the new translation fits in with ancient
texts.
According to them there used to be an enormous body of water in which
monsters were living, covered in darkness, she said.
She said technically "bara" does mean "create" but added: "Something was
wrong with the verb.
"God was the subject (God created), followed by two or more objects. Why
did God not create just one thing or animal, but always more?"
She concluded that God did not create, he separated: the Earth from the
Heaven, the land from the sea, the sea monsters from the birds and the
swarming at the ground.
"There was already water," she said.
"There were sea monsters. God did create some things, but not the Heaven
and Earth. The usual idea of creating-out-of-nothing, creatio ex nihilo,
is a big misunderstanding."
God came later and made the earth livable, separating the water from the
land and brought light into the darkness.
She said she hoped that her conclusions would spark "a robust debate",
since her finds are not only new, but would also touch the hearts of
many religious people.
She said: "Maybe I am even hurting myself. I consider myself to be
religious and the Creator used to be very special, as a notion of trust.
I want to keep that trust."
A spokesman for the Radboud University said: "The new interpretation is
a complete shake up of the story of the Creation as we know it."
Prof Van Wolde added: "The traditional view of God the Creator is
untenable now."
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Bart Goddard
"family" <brit...@bresnan.net> wrote in news:08908D72-25D5-62C1-D262-
78F35C...@art.srcbs.org:
> She said she eventually concluded the Hebrew verb "bara", which is used
> in the first sentence of the book of Genesis, does not mean "to create"
> but to "spatially separate".
<face palm> This is why academics get such a bad name. How
did she go from "the deviant translation of....." to "this is
what it meant...."? Then how does she think she's going to
deal with all the other verses which name God as Creator?
Especially the ones that weren't in Hebrew:
Colossians 1:16
For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth,
visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or
authorities; all things were created by him and for him.
Any idiot can take one verse and stare at it long enough to
deconstruct its meaning. It's like saying the same word over
and over until it loses its meaning. But even here, that's
not enough for her to get Scripture written the way she wants.
When she goes for "context" it's:
"...in the context of other creation stories from
ancient Mesopotamia."
Yeah, that should be enlightening. Maybe when they write
her biography, they should just arbitrarily change the context
of her life from campus to, oh....say a brothel.
Here's the best part:
"She said technically "bara" does mean "create" but added: "Something was
wrong with the verb.
"God was the subject (God created), followed by two or more objects. Why
did God not create just one thing or animal, but always more?"
She concluded that God did not create, he separated: "
So 1. she admits that "bara" means "create". 2. Her basis for
changing the plain meaning is that she thinks God should have
created only one thing. Somehow, the fact that God created more
than one thing confuses her?
It hurts my stomach.
B.
--
Cheerfully resisting change since 1959.