Avoiding questions

[Drich]

No spin just scriptural context, and we have to look a little deeper into the Hebrew. If you REALLY REALLY want a proper exegesis this is study (or one like it I can find my orginal work/notes) is what my orginal arguement was built on: http://www.wordexplain.com/Word_Study_tohu_wa_bohu.html

"C. F. Keil (Keil and Delitzsch), in his commentary on Genesis 1:2, states that the etymology for both tohu and bohu has been lost."

And there the trail runs cold. So you have no exemplars of bohu(w) used as an adjective rather than a noun. (And to be sure, two of the exemplars are the same phrase, so much as the gospels, you only have two exemplars, not three (separated in time, I might point out; another crucial hermeneutic detail). The immense hermeneutic difficulties this poses are likely beyond your depth, but it basically means you can't pull blood from this stone. If bohu(w) is historically understood as a noun, nothing in this "word study" overturns that basic result. [TEGH is referencing a similar 'yoking' of terms argument in another thread, regarding malakoi and arsenokoitai. Such arguments are ultimately far from persuasive, as are many arguments based on our present understanding of tropes and forms in ANE literature; in a word, from an epistemological standpoint, you simply cannot get there from here: there is much in ancient literature that we will never have a definitive understanding of, as the necessary understandings and evidences are simply lost to time. This is not a problem if you are dealing with a text such as the bible simply as a historical document, but it has massive and troubling implications for theology; ultimately, it results in people doing what you and this word study are doing: putting more into the text than was originally there to begin with.])

I will confess to being mildly amused to read that the instances of bohu(w) were highlighted in cyanide, though. That was charming.

Just incase you glanced over and dismissed what you did not or could not address I will cut and paste the revelant material:

In my own study of the word tohu in its various contexts, in a decided preponderance of the instances, the emphasis is not on form, but on function. Here, too, in Genesis 1:2, in its broader context of Genesis 1:1-2:3, I believe, the translation must carefully balance form and function. Whatever tohu means in Genesis 1:2, it means that the earth at that stage constituted an inhospitable, unsuitable environment in which physical life in any form could exist, whether plant, animal, or human. It was non-organized or non-functional (tohu) as regards its ultimate purpose, which was to be a suitable environment for man and animals; and naturally, it was also void or empty (bohu) of any living organisms, just as is our moon today. As Genesis 1:2 reveals, at this stage in Day One of Creation, the earth was a vast, unlit matrix of water, and presumably, soil and mineral. There was nothing chaotic or evil about its state at this point. Quite to the contrary, the Spirit of God Himself was moving upon the face of the waters, presumably imbuing the planet with the appropriate building blocks to support life. The earth was not deficient, but merely incomplete, not yet organized to be a hospitable environment for either fish or fowl, or land animals or man, their ruler. Those transformations would take place incrementally during the remainder of Day One and the subsequent five days of Creation (Gen. 1:3-31). So an appropriate literal translation of tohu and bohu in Genesis 1:2 is this: “Now the earth was unformedness and emptiness” (tohu and bohu are both substantives). Smoothing out the translation and again including the word bohu, we could say, “Now the earth was unformed and empty…” By “unformed” I do not mean that the earth had no shape, but rather that it was insufficiently organized to be a suitable environment for life. It was pre-functional. See the conclusion of this word study.

Bohu - Conclusion



The term bohu occurs only three times in Scripture, Gen. 1:2; Isa. 34:11; Jer. 4:23. Each time it does so, it is in tandem with tohu. The Jeremiah passage harkens back to the language of creation in Genesis 1:2. Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon lists a one-word definition for bohu – “emptiness,” and gives no etymology. C. F. Keil (Keil and Delitzsch), in his commentary on Genesis 1:2, states that the etymology for both tohu and bohu has been lost. Four representative translations (http://wordexplain.com/Translations_of_t..._bohu.html) translate bohu as “void” six times, and as some variation of “empty” or “emptiness” five times.



In the English language today, “empty” is a synonym for “void.” Since “void” with the meaning of “emptiness” is not a commonly used word, I will use the noun “emptiness” to translate the noun bohu.



Conclusion in regard to the dual use of tohu and bohu



We have already noted that tohu and bohu always appear in the same connection. In two of those instances, Genesis 1:2 and Jeremiah 4:23, are to be paired off. In Genesis 1:2 Moses declared that the earth was “formless and void” (tohu and bohu); Jeremiah stated that, as he looked at the earth, it had primeval conditions – the earth was “formless and void,” and the heavens “had no light” (Jer. 4:23).

Some have viewed tohu and bohu, connected by “and,” as a hendiadys, “the expression of an idea by the use of usually two independent words connected by and (as nice and warm) instead of the usual combination of independent word and its modifier (as nicely warm).” Constable, in his discussion of Genesis 1:2 (Notes on Genesis, 2010 edition, p. 11) states, “Here we learn that the earth was ‘formless and empty’ (a hendiadys meaning unorganized, unproductive, and uninhabited) before God graciously prepared it for human habitation (cf. Jer. 4:23-27).”

Whether or not tohu and bohu form a hendiadys, Constable has accurately captured their combined meaning as it relates especially to Genesis 1:2. The earth at this stage of Day One of the Creation week was unorganized and unproductive (tohu) and it was uninhabited (bohu).

So together, tohu and bohu are saying that the earth, at the time God first placed it in the heavens He had just made consisted, literally, of “unformedness and emptiness.” Or we could say it was “unformed and unfilled.” Or we could say it was “unorganized and empty.”

In otherwords as the author of the word study illustrates here. Just because the Hebrew identifies the word as a Macilune noun, does not mean it translate into english as a noun. Context sets how the word is interperted when translated.