Structure, role, and ideology in the Hebrew and Greek texts of Genesis 1:
[Thesis]
W. P. Brown
1--2:3
C. A. H. Newsom, John H.
Emory University
1991
495
Ph.D.
Emory University
1991
This study examines the textual relationship between the Vorlage of the Greek (LXX) and Masoretic (Hebrew or MT) texts of the Gen 1:1-2:3 in terms of their respective structures and ideologies. Since texts of identical biblical passages are by nature dialogical in relation, the first chapter is devoted to examining the methodological premisses of the "sociological poetics" of the Russian theorist M. M. Bakhtin and discussing how his ideological critical discipline can be incorporated into the text-critical enterprise. In Chapters Two and Three the Greek and Hebrew texts of Gen 1:1-2:3 are examined with respect to their formal and thematic structures. With the help of two Qumran fragments (4QGenh and 4QGenk), Chapter Four offers a reconstruction of the Hebrew Vorlage of the LXX for Gen 1:1-2:3 as a point of departure for examining the textual differences between the VorLXX and the MT. The traditio-historical issues relating to the textual differences are explored in Chapter Five with respect to the differing cosmogonic roles assigned to water (mayim) in the two texts. In the final chapter and conclusion these differences are analyzed ideologically and possible socio-historical settings for these texts are suggested. This study reaches several important conclusions. (1) Despite the apparent "harmonizing" Tendenz of the Greek text, the Vorlage of the LXX of Gen 1:1-2:3 is in fact prior to the MT. (2) Relative to their role in the VorLXX, the role of the waters (mayim) in creation is limited in the MT. (3) Although the structure of the MT is less consistent than that of the VorLXX from formal and thematic perspectives, the MT exhibits a highly refined heptadic structure. (4) The genre of the priestly cosmogony as preserved in the VorLXX is best described as a rational treatise. (5) From a socio-historical perspective, the "remythologized" role of the mayim in the MT likely corresponds to similar motifs in early apocalyptic literature.