PP....Thanks for bringing out the parallelism....it's an excellent point, showing that the order in Genesis 1 is not haphazard but structural. It is also similar to the order in Psalm 104. I'm considering writing a thread on the relationship between Genesis 1 and Psalm 104 (with the latter possibly constituting a source for the Priestly writer) and relationship between the former and Deutero-Isaiah (especially Isaiah 40-45), who was likely polemicizing against the Priestly creation account (or one akin to it).
According to the bible.....what were birds made of?
by gumby 69 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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gumby
Valbastard, I like the dumby one.......cuz I sure as hell cannot follow pete the smart bastard and leo-wizard, laia. They could explain this 100 frickin times and my idea is the only one I can understand. I'm stickin to my theory that the jewish bible writers were dope smokin, scatter brained, dipwads from hell and that pete and leaolaia should get married and start a school together for dipshits like me.
I'm smart dammit!
Gumbrains
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Farkel
You guys are all of bunch of blithering idiots! Even a child knows where birds came from. They came from EGGS, you nitwits!
And don't try to trick me by asking me where eggs came from, either. I'm waaaaay too smart for that. Eggs came from birds. Every sensible person knows that.
Farkel
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truthseeker1
I thought eggs came from ovaries?
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peacefulpete
look forward to it Leolaia.
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hooberus
Hey...putting all seriousness aside.......how come bible believers have not responded as to an answer to these scriptures and this question? It's a good question!!!!
Gumby
Here is one possible solution:
http://www.lookinguntojesus.net/ata20010701.htm
Is there a contradiction?
RESPONSE:
The fowl are from the ground. If the questioner had read on in Genesis 1, he would have found his answer in the very next verse. We read, "And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth." Whatever is meant in verse 20, it does not mean that the fowl were created for or came out of the water, for verse 22 indicates that the fowl would multiply (pro-create) upon the earth. Perhaps the wording of the KJV is not as clear as could be, but it is not contradictory.A literal translation of Genesis 1:20 would be, "...Let the waters teem with the teeming living creature, and fowl let fly on the earth on the face of the expanse of the heavens..." (YLT) This is not a statement of where these creatures were created (water or ground), but where they would dwell. The waters would have creatures in it (fish & other sea creatures) and the sky above the earth would have fowl in it.
NASB
Genesis 1 20 Then God said, "Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens." 21 God created (1) the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good.
22 God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."Genesis 2
19 (32) Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and (33) brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.
NKJV
Genesis 1 20 Then God said, "Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens." 21 So God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 22 And God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth."
Genesis 2
19 Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name.
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Leolaia
Okay, I did a little more research on this. I might have a better answer. The translation that Gumby presented appears to be influenced by the LXX rendering, which translates Hebrew srts (Genesis 1:20) with the word exegageto "produce, spawn". However srts actually has the meaning of "swarm," and according to U. Cassuto: "The primary signification of the stem sh-r-ts is, 'movement' with specific reference to the abundant, swift movement of many creatures". W.H. Schmidt similarly wrote: "v. 20a is not stating that the sea is to generate the water anmials, but merely that these animals are to swarm in the water, that is, to be present there" (1964: WMANT, p. 121). Westermann concurs by saying that "nothing more than this is intended" (Genesis 1-11, p. 136). Similarly, verses 11-12 do not mesh with the Greek rendering; their purpose was to describe origin from the earth which can be understood as generation by the earth. The words ds' and wtwts' "bring forth" however do not occur in v. 20. The verb srts occurs in Exodus 8:3 (J): "The Nile shall swarm with frogs," and appears yet again in Psalm 105:30: "Their land teemed with frogs". Outside of these two related cases, it is otherwise restricted almost exclusively to P; thus it is one of the distinctive stylistic features of P. It occurs in the Flood narrative regarding animals (Genesis 7:21; 8:17), and elsewhere regarding the multiplication of mankind upon the earth (Genesis 9:7; Exodus 1:7), and unclean animals creeping on the ground (Leviticus 5:2; 11:10, 20, 29, 41-44, 46, 22:5). This reflects P's concern for abundance of life, found in the covenant promise in Genesis 17 of Abraham being a "father of a multitude of nations".
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peacefulpete
Thanks...Hooberus and Leolaia. The point has been made that Gen 1 does not necessarily say that the birds were generated from water however the primordial water motif is far more prominent in P's tradition over the dry ground image of E-J.
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Frannie Banannie
Gumbo, the only thing I know for sure about birds is that if ya hold yer position in one spot long enough, those flyin' high above ya will dump a lotta crapola on ya!
Frannie B
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Leolaia
PP....Yes indeed, creation via separation from water is critical to the second and third creative works (creation of land and heaven). However in P, the creation of vegetation is presented as generation from the earth (1:11-12).
Here is what Skinner also says about the verb Gumby's translation renders as "bring forth":
W. H. Bennett (rendering and fowl that may fly) thinks the author was probably influenced by some ancient tradition that birds was well as fishes were produced by the water (so Rashi and Abraham Ibn Ezra interpret 2:19). The conjecture is attractive, and the construction has the support of all Greek LXX versions and the Vulgate; but it is not certain that the verb can mean "produce a swarm". The root has in Aramaic the sense of "creep" and there are many passages in the OT where that idea would be appropriate (Leviticus 11:29, 41-43, etc.). Hence Rob Smith (Lectures on the Religion of the Semites, 2nd edition, p. 293) regards it as referring to "creeping vermin generally". But here and Genesis 8:17, 9:7, Exodus 1:7, 7:28, Psalm 105:30, it can only mean "teem" or "swarm"; and Driver (Genesis, p. 12) is probably right in extending that meaning to all the passages in Hebrew. Genesis 1:20-21, Exodus 7:28, and Psalm 105:30 are the only places where the construction with cog. acc. appears; elsewhere the animals themselves are subj. of the verb. The words, except in three passages, are peculiar to the vocabulary of P. Thus (in connections like the present, especially Exodus 7:28 and Psalm 105:30), the sense is simply "teem with", indicating the place or element in which the swarming creatures abound, in which case it cannot possibly govern 'wp as object. Hebrew shrts has a sense of something like "vermin", i.e. it never denotes a swarm per se, but is always used of the creatures that appear in swarms. (Skinner, Genesis, pp. 27-28)
So this is pretty much the same conclusion.