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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 XVI(Reference: p.78) Meaning of Descriptive
Terms Found in Genesis 1.2. Four descriptive terms are
used: tohu, bohu, ghoshek, and te- hom, translated respectively
in the AV as "without form", "void", "darkness", and
"deep". The following are the occurrences of tohu with their AV, RV,
Berkeley, and RSV renderings (in that order). Deut. 32.10: Psa. 107.40: waste wilderness wilderness waste in a .... waste pathless wastes in a .... waste trackless wastes I Sam. 12.21: Isa. 24.10: vain things confusion vain
confusion mere nothings desolate vain chaos Job 6.18: Isa. 29.21: to nothing a thing of nought into a waste thing of nought wastes empty the waste empty Job 12.24: Isa. 34.11: a wilderness confusion wilderness confusion in a jungle chaos a pathless waste confusion Job 26.7: Isa. 40.17: empty place vanity empty place confusion (m.) empty place worthlessness the void as emptiness pg
1 of 3 Isa. 40.23: Isa. 45.19: vanity not in
vain as in a waste as in a waste like nothing in vain as nothing in chaos Isa. 41.29: Isa. 49.4: confusion for nought confusion for nought waste for nothing empty for nothing Isa. 44.9: Isa. 59.4: vanity in vanity confusion (m.) vanity in vain in confusion nothing empty pleas Isa. 45.18: Jer. 4.23: not in vain without form a waste waste in vain formless a chaos waste In the LXX the words Tohu
and Bohu are rendered
where it is translated in
the AV as "hidden", and in II Macc. 9.5 where it is rendered in
the RV as "invisible" (an invisible plague!). The second is found only
in Gen. 1.2 in the LXX and is not again used. In no passage where Hebrew employs the
word tohu does the Septuagint use the
word Chaos ( appear twice elsewhere in
the LXX, ie. , in Mic.1.6 and Zech.14.4, in both of which it is
clearly employed to indicate a dramatic dis- ordering - not a Chaos in
the classical sense of being merely as yet un-ordered. If the idea of
something unformed or incomplete were the author's intent in
Gen. 1.2, it seems that the authors of the LXX could still not
appropriately have used the Greek word
to them, evidently, (on
the basis of Mic. 1.6 and Zech. 14.4) it did not mean what was meant by
the term in Classical Greek. It is hard to know what term
they could have used to convey the idea of something yet incomplete -
if that is what the original means.
At any rate they avoided the
word
In the New Testament the
opposite term frequently, always with
the sense of "furnishing", "making ready", "adorning". Unfortunately, the New Testament does not use the antonym chosen by the LXX
for bohu so that one cannot be sure in what sense it was employed
in Gen. 1.2, whether as un-formed or de-formed. That they did not
use the term some slight indication
that the idea of something un-formed was not considered the meaning of
the original. But the evidence is
in- conclusive in this
respect. By contrast, I do not
think that the Hebrew word tohu can possibly be viewed as a word normally
implying something yet incomplete. It is much more
frequently, almost overwhelmingly, employed as a term descriptive of
something that is, in the view of both men and God, under judgment or in
disfavour, worthless or desolated rather than not yet to be made
valuable or not yet put in order. With reference to the word
bohu, James Strong in his Dictionary gives the meaning (sub
entry #922) as "an indistinguishable ruin", though he states that the
root (an unused one) means merely "to be empty". The noun occurs only in Gen. 1.2 and
Jer.4.23. BDB favours the sense of bohu
as something destroyed, not something- being built. Of tohu in Gen. 1.2, they also
support strongly the concept of "land reduced
to primeval chaos" (my emphasis). The word
"darkness" is in Scripture frequently associated with something under judgment:
but it is not always so. The word can be used merely for the
absence of light, as during the night. Either interpretation of the term
in Gen. 1.2 would be equally allowable. Of the term tehom,
it is difficult to speak without becoming in- volved also in such words
from extra-biblical sources as the Assyrian Tiamtu, etc. In the Bible it means "the
abyss" or simply, "the deep sea". If one is
to argue for a picture of a nebulous first-stage in the process of
creation, it is hard to see how a deep sea, an ocean, or at least
"waters" (verse 3), could already be in existence. In a number of other passages
in Scripture where the word occurs (as for example: Psa.36.7 (Heb.);
71.20; 106.9 , there is a suggestion of judgment or distress, but
not always. The "deep" is often an agent of destruction, as at the
time of the Flood, but in itself it seems to signify no more than the
mystery of a great body of water whose depths are unfathomable,
as it were. Once again, the evidence is inconclusive. But it does
not seem unlikely that deep oceans could be thought of as existing
when the earth was still part of a nebula as some have viewed Gen. 1.2. Copyright © 1988 Evelyn White. All rights reserved
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