Tohuwabohu

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Tohuwabohu ( Hebrew תהו ובהו tōhū wā-bōhū mostly translated as 'desolate and empty') denotes a hopeless mess and is modernized translated as “ chaos ”.

etymology

In Genesis 1: 1-2, the Bible begins with the sentence: “1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2. And the earth was tohu wa-bohu . ”According to Luther, the Hebrew term means “ desolate and empty ”. Tohu denotes the “desert” or “emptiness”, wa means “and” and bohu expresses the meaning of “being disordered”. The standard translation reproduces the passage with “desolate and confused” ( Genesis 1,2  EU ). In the New Evangelistic Translation , the passage is rendered as “The earth was formless and empty” ( 1 Mos 1,2  NIV ).

The Hebrew phrase tohu wa-bohu forms a homoioteleuton . The translation of Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig's ( Die Schrift ) does not reflect the literal meaning, but transfers the stylistic device: "Irrsal und Verrsal".

Interpretations

In Jer 4,23  EU there is the sentence: “I looked at the earth and, behold, it was tohuwabohu .” In verse 26, among other things, it says: “And behold, the fertile land had become a desert and all cities were destroyed.” Passages in chapter 4 therefore describe a state of utter confusion after a war . Whether the passage from Jeremiah refers to the creation story or vice versa must remain open. Tohu also expresses “spiritual emptiness” (ie a kind of lack of leadership) - bohu, on the other hand, may mean “spiritual emptiness” (ie lack of thinking beings).

Modern

Today the term "tohuwabohu" is generally used for a shambles.

literature

  • Friedrich Kluge, edited by Elmar Seebold: Etymological dictionary of the German language . 24th edition (revised and expanded edition). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2001, ISBN 978-3-11-017473-1 , page 919.
  • Martin Hann: The Bible (= UTB for science: Uni-Taschenbücher , Volume 2591.). Schöningh, 2005, ISBN 3-8252-2591-7 , p. 48.
  • Andreas Schüle: The prehistory: (Gen 1 - 11) (= Zurich Bible Commentaries. Old Testament , Volume 1.). Theological Publishing House Zurich, Zurich 2009, ISBN 3-290-17527-8 , p. 34.

Web links

Wiktionary: Tohuwabohu  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dr. Karl Feyerabend, Langenscheidt's Dictionary of Old Hebrew-German to the Old Testament , p. 25 u. 285