On what basis is Genesis 1 said to be Hebrew poetry?
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Genesis 1 is constrained writing, and most poetry is a kind of constrained writing. My guess is that this is what has led a lot of people to say that Genesis 1 is a kind of poetry. But not all constrained writing is poetry, and Genesis 1 is very dissimilar from the typical Hebrew poetry of the rest of the Bible (ie., the Psalms, most of the prophets etc.)
To explain how Genesis 1 is constrained writing, I'll quote this list from John Dickson explaining all the ways in which the number seven and multiples of seven are used in the chapter:
- The first sentence has 7 Hebrew words
- The second sentence has 14 Hebrew words
- The words for 'earth' and 'heaven' each occur 21 times
- God is mentioned 35 times
- 'and it was so' occurs 7 times
- 'God saw that it was good' occurs 7 times
- The chapter is structured around 7 days
The number seven symbolises wholeness and perfection, the very quality of the completed creation. Genesis 1 reinforces the goodness of the creation both through what it teaches, but also how it teaches, using these subtle (and invisible in English translations) constraints on its writing.
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