Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Bryan Rocine" <596547 AT ican.net>]

Hi, John,

Thanks for your response!

you wrote:
> Dear Bryan,

<snip>
> 
> 
> For under-specification, I'd be interested in your view of who is the
subject of the
> verb "they pulled him up" in Gen 37:28.  To read Genesis 37-50 as a
coherent whole,
> "his brothers" must be the subject (Gen 45:4 seems to indicate that
Judah's intention
> to sell Joseph ws carried out), while the Midianites and Ishmaelites must
be the same
> or somehow overlapping (as in Judges 6-8).
> 
> Why the "under-specification" here, which, as you say, "risks a
(temporary)
> mis-reading"?  A related question - why mix the Ishmaelites and
Midianites (and
> Medanites; 37:36)?

good example of under-specification!  it's downright ambiguous.   and it's
a good question because this passage is often cited as an example of poor
splicing by the redactor.  one counter-argument to my "pragmatic
under-specification" idea is that under-specification is not thematic, but
poor editing.  

first, as to the subject of vayya`alu in 37:28:  i would lean toward the
brothers as being the ones who draw out Jo and lift him because of your
same consideration, plus, more locally, the brothers *must* be the subject
of the next clause, "they sold..."  notice how, at the same time the
subject is under-specified, the object, Jo, is over-specified.   but what
is the effect of under-specifying the brothers?  it pushes them out of the
spotlight and turns the event into a mere mechanism to get Jo to Egypt. 
thematically, i might suggest(though i feel like i'm reaching) that
ultimately Jo is going to tell his brothers that they should not be angry
with themselves, that it is not them who sent him to E but God.  therefore,
the under-specification of the brothers as the senders of their brother to
E is appropriate.  does it seem like reaching to you?

i take the Midianite/Ishmaelite reference to be an over-specification of
sorts as if to say, "it was not only the Midianites, it was the
ISHMAELITES!"  we may, of course, take the double appellation of the
caravan peoples to be evidence of a redactor's poor splicing job of two
versions of the Jo narrative because it seems that the same people were at
one time referred to as Midianites and at another time Ishmaelites, but
there is another attestation of the Ismaelites being a subset of the
Midianites: Jdg 8:22-24.  i would rather think that the double appellation
is thematic in that selling a brother to the Midianites, the descendants of
Abraham and Keturah, is bad enough; but it is even worse to sell him to the
Ishmaelites, the descendants of Abraham's rejected son.  from the brothers'
perspective, there may be a cruel irony in the passing by of an Ishmaeli
caravan.  they sell the favored son Jo to the descendants of the rejected
son Ishmael "where he belongs."  of course, this analysis, may work against
the under-specification of the brothers.   the double-appellation of the
caravan aids us in finding the thematic significance of the identity of the
buyers.

i don't think the arguments for poor work on the part of a redactor and for
pragmatic under or over-specification are necessarily mutually exclusive. 
a redactor, in order to create theme, may risk poor splicing of his sources
which he does feel free to amend. in fact, pragmatic under and
over-specification may have been generated *by* a redactor.

there is another explanation of under and over-specification besides either
my view of it as a thematic device or the text-geneticist view of it as
evidence of a seam.  the third view i know of is that under and
over-specification are obligatory behaviors, used in order to create clause
hierarchy within a text.  under-specification subordinates a clause.  one
might check the work of Eep Talstra for this type of analysis.

<noted and snipped>

> 
> A related question - should translators leave under- and
over-specification in their
> translations as much as possible?  Note how the NIV gets rid of all the
> over-specification in Gen 21:3:
> NASB Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah
bore to him,
> Isaac.
> 
> NIV Abraham gave the name Isaac to the son Sarah bore to him.

yes, i do think translations for the general public should preserve the
under and over-specification of actants as per the Hebrew.  but i also
think the translations should include some notes of explanation, if nothing
else than a note observing that the Hebrew writers display a different
sensitivity to specification of the actants and a blurb about possible
explanations.  i think the note is appropriate because i think reading
Hebrew is different than reading English even *after* the Hebrew has been
translated into English(ahh...truth in paradox!   ;-)   ).

have a good one!
Bryan



I had written:
> >
> > it seems to me that the Hebrew writer's stylistic/pragmatic
sensibilities
> > are a little different than ours in that he may use
*under*-specification
> > as well as over-specification as a marking device.  Over and
> > under-specification are both used in  Exodus 2:21-25
> >



B. M. Rocine
Associate Pastor
Living Word Church
6101 Court St. Rd.
Syracuse, NY 13208

315-437-6744(w)
315-479-8267(h)