Re: USAGE: Initial "and" (was Re: The Babel Text)

As I understand it, these ands were put in by the original authors as
sentence breaks.  Genesis would originally have been written as a stream
of characters, with no space or punctuation, and these ands showed where
new sentences began.
-M

>
> > On Sat, Feb 14, 2004 at 08:26:48PM -0500, Trebor Jung wrote:
> > >    Maybe the anded version means something like, '[And so,] all the land
> was
> > >    one language and few words'.
> > It's the start of a chapter, and doesn't really follow logically on the
> > end of the previous one, which is an enumeration of the descendants of
> > Noah after the Flood.
> >
> In KJV at least, it seems to be a literal translation of the Hebrew (and
> perhaps the Greek)-- Steg I believe gave us the Hebrew line about Shinar the
> other day, and it began with v(+vowel)-.  Sentence-initial 'and's are
> EVERYWHERE in the Bible, both OT and NT.  I've always assumed (perhaps was
> once told by a teacher who knew) that it was a feature of Hebrew narrative
> writing.
>
> Aside from KJV (and other writings in lofty or Biblical mode) starting
> sentences with "and" is frowned upon in English writingl. (Same with "but").
> But they can both be used-- sparingly-- for effect.
>
>
>
>
> > Also, the phenomenon pops up elsewhere.  Consider the song "Closer to
> > the Heart", which begins with "And the men who hold high places ...",
> > or the song "That's What Friends Are For", which begins "And I never
> > thought I'd feel this way".  There are numerous other examples, usually
> > in verse rather than prose.
> >
> > -Mark
>
>