this post was submitted on 29 Nov 2023
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Atheism
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That isn’t how Genesis begins. Genesis begins “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” The second verse (in English) does say “the earth was without form and void”, but “without form and void” is better translated as “an unformed void”. We translate “void” adjectively (instead of as a noun) in Genesis 1:2 because the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew text used by Hellenistic jews in and around the turn of the BC/AD epoch’s) implied an unseen quality to earth. “Unseen and unready” would be a rough translation of the Greek translation into modern English, where “unseen” (ἀόρατος) is the word translated as “void”. In actuality the Hebrew word is a noun (bohu, בֹּהוּ), not an adjective. And it’s masculine.
SOURCE: Am pretentious Biblical language nerd who needs to correct random strangers on the internet and historically bad translations that perpetuate new bad translations.