Proclaimer Blog
Genesis 1, definite articles and hard work
I'm preaching a four week series on Genesis 1 at the moment. Stirring stuff. Today in my prep I've been looking at the climax of creation on Day Six and how the text has some clues that draw us to the conclusion that this is what it is all working towards. Most noticeably, of course, the description changes from "good" to "very good."
But I also noticed today that the descriptions of the days change as well. All along the creation path there are no definite articles in the days. Days One through Five are all introduced as "there was evening and there was morning, first day" or "a first day." When you get to Day Six there is a definite article introduced to break the pattern. "there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day." There, in the text, is a clue that there is something special or climatic about this final day of creating.
I'm not a Hebrew scholar and I'm prepared to be corrected. But why do no English translations reflect this change (bar one, the New American Standard Update translates more literally)? I don't think the difference is inconsequential. I wonder if sometimes familiar words (this is how the KJV translated it) or even theology can get in the way of translation?
On occasion you see this elsewhere. For example, few translations which claim to be in the vernacular bother translating "hallowed" in the Lord's Prayer though this is a bizarre phrase that is pure jargon to the uneducated (for the record, only the HCSB amongst modern 'essentially literal' translations make a change in Matthew 6.9 – although less literal translations all do, e.g. The Message, Living Bible, NLT, CEV, NCV etc).
All of which reinforces what we believe and teach and I have found to be true again and again. There is no substitute for sitting down and working hard at the text. No short cuts.
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