再思創世記四章七節的涵義該隱故事的另一個角度

Making A New Sense Out of Genesis 4:7 with a Revised Understanding of the Story of Cain

黃正人(Jengzen Huang)

《華神期刊》 8期 (2016/11) Pp. 10-34

並列摘要

Genesis 4:7, with its apparent grammatical and syntactical difficulties and its enigmatic tone, has been attracting scholars' attention and efforts. This paper provides an in-depth review of the problems encountered in the most popular reading of this verse as reflected in major English translations since the King James Version, and endeavors to propose a few new solutions to these problems with the support of syntactical and lexical evidences provided in the Hebrew Bible, under a full respect of the Masoretic text including both consonants and vowels. The proposed solutions turn out to facilitate a future-oriented perspective in the reading of Gen 4:7, which would highlight an existential situation of a created human being in the face of divine admonition that would have been easily neglected in the popular reading of this verse. The revised reading also supports a presentation of Gen 4:7 as a major key to the understanding of the story of Cain in Genesis 4, and reinforces the coherence between the story of Cain and the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2-3.