Question for speakers of Hebrew
One of the reasons why I love Logos is that it allows me to (at least try to) use original languages without speaking any of them.
While studying Genesis, I tried to determine if both, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, were in the middle of the garden. The NIV seems to interpret it such that both trees were in the middle of the garden:
In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The Holy Bible: New International Version. (1984). (Ge 2:9). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
However, looking at the interlinear Hebrew/English OT, this does not seem to be obvious. For me, it sounds like the tree of life was in the middle of the garden, but this verse does not state that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was also in the middle of the garden. Only in the next chapter, Eve states this.
Can somebody familiar with Hebrew can comment on this?
And as a second question: How can I as non-Hebrew speaker figure this out in L8?
Comments
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For questions like this, I like to look at Messianic Package.
"The JPS Torah Commentary" Page 18-19
and
"Ariel’s Bible commentary: the book of Genesis" Page 76-770 -
Looks like the LPOG thinks so:
You can find this by selecting the "Propositional Outlines" under Resource.
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I don't think you'll get a clear answer. WIVU and Andersen-Forbes treat the TOK similar to JPS-Gen (Thomas' post), as an add-on (independent ellipsis). The Targums and LXX just repeat, without trying to untangle. But the Latin takes the same path as the NIV.
Regarding your non-hebrew, questions like this over-define the limits of both hebrew, and greek. In the case of hebrew, you're looking at a long string of consonants, later untangled with traditions and guesswork. In greek, the flexibility of 'glue-words' make hard translations iffy.
"If myth is ideology in narrative form, then scholarship is myth with footnotes." B. Lincolm 1999.
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Thomas Pape said:
For questions like this, I like to look at Messianic Package.
"The JPS Torah Commentary" Page 18-19
and
"Ariel’s Bible commentary: the book of Genesis" Page 76-77[quote]
v. 9 tells us that “the tree of life” was “in the middle of the garden,” implying that “the tree of knowledge of good and bad” was not there; yet in 3:3 Eve tells the snake that the latter tree was also “in the middle of the garden.” In truth, weren’t all the trees “in the midst of the garden”?
The Commentators' Bible is a valuable resource if you want to take a look at traditional Jewish exegesis:
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