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Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapters
  Chapter  1
  Chapter  2
  Chapter  3
  Chapter  4
  Chapter  5
  Chapter  6

Appendices
  Appendix I
  Appendix II
  Appendix III
  Appendix IV
  Appendix V
  Appendix VI
  Appendix VII
  Appendix VIII
  Appendix IX
  Appendix X
  Appendix XI
  Appendix XII
  Appendix XIII
  Appendix XIV
  Appendix XV
  Appendix XVI
  Appendix XVII
  Appendix XVIII
  Appendix XIX
  Appendix XX
  Appendix XXI

Indexes
  References
  Names
  Biblical References

General Bibliography

 

 

 

 

APPENDIX II

(Reference: p.39)

 

The Classical Concept of Chaos.

 

According to the Greek poet Hesiod, in his Theogony (Bk. 116,

chap. 123) written somewhere around 775 BC., there was at the very

beginning only a yawning unfathomable abyss, an infinitude of empty

space which was the womb out of which the Universe came into

existence.   This empty space was referred to as "The Chaos".

Chaos existed before all else, before the gods came into being, before

the material Universe was created, and therefore before the earth

itself was formed.

The conception of Chaos as the confused mass out of which in

the very beginning the separate forms of material things arose, is

not in view. This concept belongs to a much later period.

In his Metamorphoses (I: 7), the Roman poet and historian Ovid

equates Chaos with the crude, shapeless mass into which the Archi-

tect of the World introduced order and harmony, thereby creating

the Cosmos. But the original Greek concept had placed Chaos before

even the gods themselves, and it had at that time no material sub-

stance in it to be organized.   Ovid completed his Metamorphoses

somewhere around 10 AD., or nearly eight centuries later. If it is

remembered that the Septuagint Version of the Book of Genesis was

written about 120 BC., it will be seen that the concept of Chaos was

probably being re-interpreted, meaning either the first empty space

which preceded all things OR the first state of unorganized matter.

As far as I know, there is no way of being certain which it was.

However, the Septuagint was undoubtedly written with Greek read-

ers in mind, and probably to most Greeks the concept of Chaos was

still the traditional one, a vast emptiness with matter not merely yet

unformed but not even in existence as a material substance at all. To

the Hebrew scholars in Alexandria who prepared the Septuagint

Version, such could hardly be taken as the meaning of Gen. 1.2 since

the heaven and the earth were already in existence created by God,

as Gen. 1.1 clearly states.   Moreover, the very idea involved in

the Hebrew word bara makes it very unlikely that they had in mind

"an infinitude of empty space" such as the Greek concept of Chaos

signifies, because this Hebrew word basically means "to smooth off"

 

pg 1 of 2      


or "to polish", a meaning which implies already existing material.

Young, in his Analytical Concordance, suggests the meaning of the

word on the basis of biblical usage as being "to cut" or "carve", both

of which terms can only be applied to something which already exists

in substantial form.   "Creation", to the Hebrew mind, implies

something more substantial than an empty space.

It is popularly said that the word means "to create out of nothing".

This concept is not actually inherent in the Hebrew word bara, or

perhaps one should say rather, that it is not necessarily inherent.

The proof of this is found first in the fact that Adam was created out

of the dust of the ground, and not out of nothing: and the word itself

is employed elsewhere in Scripture of human activity.   See, for

example: Josh. 17.15 and 18 where it is used of "cutting down" trees,

in Ezek.23.47, of "dispatching" people, ie., by slaughtering them;

in Ezek.21.19, of "cutting out" in the sense of choosing, much as the

ranch hand "cuts out" from the herd certain cattle for a special

purpose. In I Sam. 2.29 it is used in the sense of "carving out" for

oneself the choicest cuts of meat from the sacrifices being offered

to God, a nice illustration of how the true sense of the word illustrates

a text which even the Jerusalem Bible feels is obscure.   It is only

obscure so long as one attributes to the Hebrew word bara the meaning

of creating as its fundamental meaning. But clearly this is not its

fundamental meaning.

And while we are on this subject, it may be worth observing that,

contrary to a statement which has been mis-applied to the biblical

use of this word times without number to the effect that the word is

only used of divine activity, it is quite evident that this is not the case.

It is , however, only found applied to divine activity in the light or

qal form, a form which signifies the most effortless kind of activity.

That Creation was of such a nature to God is nicely brought out in

three Psalms, where we are told that creation was the work of God's

fingers (Psa. 8.3), punishment the work of His hands.(Psa. 39.10), and

salvation the work of His arm (Psa. 77.15) - each involving, as it

were, a larger part of His total energies.

 

*   *   *

 

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Copyright © 1988 Evelyn White. All rights reserved  

 

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