The story of the creation of man and woman in Genesis 2 begins with God forming the first human who is designated האדם (hāʾādām, ‘the human’). The word is used as a generic term referring to human beings in many places in biblical Hebrew. Furthermore, there are a number of other words which mean ‘man’…
what’s in a name: name giving in genesis 2
Last week I heard Thomas R. Schreiner speak at Moore Theological College on the topic of “What the Bible says about Women in Ministry.” While briefly making reference to Genesis 1–3 he made a particular point that the man’s act of naming the animals and the woman is an exercise of authority on his part,…
water on mars
NASA have recently announced the discovery of flowing water on the planet Mars. Of course this is not really anything new! In late 1945 my grandfather gave my father a science book entitled The Marvels and Mysteries of Science “written in popular style” by Clyde Fisher et al. (published in 1943) for my father’s 13th…
slavery in the old testament
The former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd caused something of a stir during an appearance on the ABC’s Q&A program when he likened holding on to the notion that marriage should only be between a man and a woman because that’s the Bible’s position with the notion that we should support slavery because the Bible…
job’s wife
February 8th is International Septuagint Day. In celebration, this year I thought I’d post one of the two major differences between the LXX and MT in the Book of Job, the details of Job’s wife. For those unfamiliar with her, this is all we hear of and from Job’s wife in the MT: ותאמר לו…
genre variation between gen 1–11 and 12–50
It is reasonably clear that the story of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob found in Genesis 12–50 is presented as a historical narrative (regardless of what one thinks about the actual historicity of the story). But what are we to make of Genesis 1–11? Would the original audience have understood these chapters in the same manner as…
Was Elihu Right?
JESOT 3.2 is now live and includes my article entitled “Was Elihu Right?” In it I discuss the contribution of Elihu in the Book of Job, so check it out: http://jesot.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/M.-Shields-JESOT-3.2.pdf The “prequel” to this article (entitled “Malevolent of Mysterious”) is also available for download from Tyndale Bulletin: http://www.tyndalehouse.com/Bulletin/61=2010/5%20Shields.pdf
genesis 1 is not poetry
What can I say? Genesis 1 is not poetry, nor is it some weird hybrid of poetry and prose. Genesis 1:27 alone is poetry, but the rest of the chapter is pretty much stock-standard biblical Hebrew narrative in regards to its syntax. It is not poetry! Why is this an issue? It’s an issue because…
apple pages 5.0 finally supports hebrew
In the last week, Apple has released a flurry of software updates, including updates to its iWork productivity software. While there are some who are unhappy with the changes, the good news is that Pages — Apple’s versatile word-processing application — now supports right-to-left and mixed direction text entry. Previous versions of Pages would allow entry of…
finding too much sex in genesis 2
I was simply going to title this “Common Misunderstandings of Genesis 2,” but then I thought the title could be spiced up a little bit, particularly because there’s a tendency to see sexual activity lying behind so much of what happens, particularly in the latter part of the chapter. Anyway, here are some of the…