Author: conanlibrarian

One of my primary teachings to my Hebrew students was, “Let the grammar determine your theology.”

The more I delved into the text of Scripture the more I was amazed at the precision of the grammar. This led me to study Discourse Grammar as taught by Robert Longacre (quick overview here). What follows is a very brief introduction to the concept using the first verses of Genesis and what may be gleaned by an understanding of what the Author had his amanuensis do with rather precise grammar.

Quick side lesson here on an author and his grammar – if he could have written it a different way then we need to look closely into why he wrote it in the way that he did.

Gen. 1.1-3

1 בראשׁית ברא אלהים את השׁמים ואת הארץ⇐

2a והארץ היתה תהו ובהו⇐⇐⇐

2b וחשׁך על פני תהום⇐⇐⇐

2c ורוח אלהים מרחפת על פני האמים⇐⇐

 3a ויאמר אלהים

 3b יהי אור

3c ויהי אור⇐⇐⇐⇐

1 ⇒In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth

2a ⇒⇒⇒And the earth was formless and void

2b ⇒⇒⇒And darkness was upon the face of the deep

2c ⇒⇒And the spirit of God was hovering upon the face of the waters

3a And God said

3b Let there be light

3c ⇒⇒⇒And there was light

I have inserted arrows at the beginning of clauses to demonstrate tabs which I am not sure how to do on the web without dropping in a pdf file (if you know how shoot me an e-mail!).

What the tabs show are varying degrees of primacy in the text – i.e., mainline clause and supporting clauses. The clauses without tabs are the mainline clauses as shown by the specific Hebrew verb form. Clausal forms and elements are the grammatical clues to the hierarchy of the clauses in their relationship to each other and to the overall text. In this text we have a mainline narrative text and a mainline hortatory (imperatival) clause (3a, 3c); a background action clause (1), a back ground activities clause (2c) and three setting clauses (2a, 2b, 3c).

In evaluating a text I normally remove the verse markers to get rid of any influence of the versifier and evaluate the text as a literary block. When done this way it can be seen how the text was meant to be read.

The grammatical markers (clausal structure mainly) are the indicators that the author used to show how he wanted the text to flow and what the main point was and what was backgrounding and support structures. I find it useful to think of a stage or a movie scene. You have the background or setting of the stage or scene. Then you have the background activities-things movie around giving more contextual information. Then you have back ground action – things happening closer to the front of the stage but not quite the main action. Then, closest to the audience and in focus you have the main action. The author of a text sets the stage and demonstrates the action by his clausal elements and structures.

The creation at the beginning (1) sets up what is to follow but did it in such a way as to provide background action to the main action – the creation of light. 2a-c gives the state of the creation prior to the creation of light; it provides the setting and background activity to the stage structure before the main action.

The main action is God speaking light into existence. It is very distinct in the Hebrew text by virtue of the verb form and the fact that that form is always found at the front of the clause.

1-2 is all background and setting. Structured the way it is it can take up any amount of time – microseconds to billions of years. The grammar of the text allows that. Day 1 does not begin until 3a. If you look at the rest of Gen 1 each day begins the same – and God said . . . ; and ends the same – there was evening, there was morning, day Umptifratz (highly theo-scientific technical term derived from a Hebrew root).

Roots and Beginnings

As I type this I am watching The Return of the King and the title of this introduction suggested itself.

This blog will be an investigation and discussion of the relationship between the observable universe and the written Word. The assumption and point of departure will be that the author of both is the same – the LORD God of Israel. He created what we see and he wrote what we read.

Interestingly, the genesis of this has one person as its author, Cathy Madden, my wife of fourty-six years.

For those who don’t know her, she is a bit of an outspoken lass. Those who do know her will confirm this observation. When we started dating we would have discussion in religion as we were from two different camps, as it were. When queried on a belief my response was, “this is what I was taught”; her’s was, “but the Bible says this.” I had not been a great reader of Scripture before those discussions and they caused me to pick up my parent’s Bible (which they got on the day of  my birth) and investigate what she was saying. That began my love and fascination with what God has had written to us in Holy Writ. Side, note – it did say what she said it did!

Cathy, I have learned, has an uncanny sense of what I would like. Not necessarily what I had been wanting, say, for a birthday or father’s day, but what I would like. She at one time bought me a BBQ/smoker for father’s day one year. I had not thought of one nor had it ever been suggested that I would want one. But she got me one and as soon as I saw it I loved it! We lived in North Carolina at the time. One of the very major differences between North Carolina and Texas is BBQ. North Carolina thinks (erroneously) that it pertains to pigs when everyone knows that cows are the key. This was amply demonstrated when, having fired the smoker up, starting with that next 4^th of July (3^rd really – those who were there understand) and going for the next 12+ years, we held an annual smoked brisket meal while we watched fireworks from our cul-de-sac. We would go through 70lbs. of brisket in those nights.

The other item that she got me as she thought I might like it was a telescope from The Talented Child Store in Dallas. It was a very simple 4” reflector housed in a red plastic bubble. Easy to point and shoot and I loved what I saw through it. I traded it in for a more sophisticated 4” reflector with an equatorial mount. With that one I scoped out the moon, Jupiter, and the sun, which I projected on the back wall of my garage in Richardson, Texas. It was utterly fascinating!

At about that time I had begun studies for graduate degrees in the Bible and related topics and spent twenty years teaching Hebrew and Old Testament at a fairly large seminary. While teaching at the seminary, Cathy and I started a Sunday school class at the church we attended in Raleigh that we named The Theological Roundtable with the intent of having serious, in depth discussions of what God’s Word said. We taught that class for over fifteen years and it has continued since we left about five years ago. We did have in depth discussions, some of which covered creation and origins and which touched on the relationship between Special Revelation as found in the Bible and General Revelation as found in Nature. Again, we approached that discussion from the view that they shared the same author and so what we would find in one would be reflected in the other and that neither would contradict the other. That topical discussion was one of many. This blog will be one more directed to the relationship of God’s two great works and will use the Bible for part of the discussion and a telescope for the other part. To that end I have a Celestron 8” on the way and I have been going over YouTube videoes on how to do astrophotography as it is my intent that this blog include in depth Bible discussion (read references to Hebrew and Greek) and displays of what I will be photographing through my telescope.

Come, join me on the journey and let’s explore some great and interesting topics!

You have to understand what you’re looking at

Whether it’s the Text or the Sky

And you have to have the tools to do a good evaluation