Saturday 2 December 2017

Vayeishev - Genesis 37:1-40:22

Doublespeak

In Biblical Hebrew the doubling of a verb-form indicates an extreme use of that form. 

In Genesis 37:33, then the sons of Jacob show him a bloody tunic of Joseph, Jacob cries out "he has been torn-apart in a tearing-apart!" (טרף טרף).

I will often simplify the language and use "fucking" in place of the first verb form as "he has been fucking torn to pieces!"

We find this same verbiage in Genesis 2:17 when YHVH-Elohim warns Adam that if he eats from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, he will "dead you will be dead" (מות תמות), or better yet, "You will be fucking dead!".

In that case, there is a warning of something horrible that will happen, while in the former case, a horrible thing had happened.

Interestingly enough, apologists have a problem with the latter form, because Adam was not killed, and did not die a horrible death. The claim that Adam was "built to last forever", but ignore that (1) there was a tree of eternal living in the garden, (2) he never ate from that fruit, and (3) God sent him out because He didn't want him to eat that fruit.

No, Adam wasn't built to live forever, and God promised to fucking kill him.

Badly.

Why He didn't, well, he either changed His mind, or two (or more) different writers didn't care about continuity.

Either way, it's an interesting point in this portion of the story: as far as Jacob was concerned, Joseph was "fucking ripped to shreds".

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