Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG]

Interesting, I had never looked at the X + qatal in Gen 4:1 before. 
Two possibilities: this is sequential and a genuine exception to the 
regular pattern; or at least the first clause here is a flashback, an 
incident which took place before the preceding expulsion from Eden.

Why does Randall take this as sequential? Why do (most at least) 
translations? Does it have something to do with a doctrinal 
presupposition that sex is evil and could not have been practised in 
paradise? I would have thought that Genesis 2:22-25 rather suggests 
that (in the view of the author) sex was appropriate in heaven.

But there is also a question of how far the flashback continues. If 
the first clause of 4:1 is a flashback, do we have any reliable means 
of determining the end of the flashback. Were Cain and Abel born in 
Eden? (Eve's words at Cain's birth fit better in Eden, perhaps; and 
3:20 makes more sense if Eve already "had become" (HFY:TFH) a mother). 
Did they take up their different callings there? Presumably Cain did 
not murder Abel until after the expulsion! How, from the text, can we 
tell what the author meant?

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re[3]: Qatal, 1 Kings 11:1
Author:  ButhFam at CompuServe
Date:    03/02/1999 05:48

<snip>

as for pluperfecticity, one will not be able to get at that by paragraph 
position. paragraph initial x-qatal can be either pluperfect (jona 1.5), 
simultaneous or sequential (gen 4.1).

<snip>