Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter_Kirk AT SIL.ORG]

Let me respond to this in terms of the scientific methods in which I 
was trained, and which may be rather different from the historical 
methods to which some list members are accustomed.

It is clear to me that there is as yet no theory of Hebrew tenses 
which is generally accepted and which accounts for the evidence. There 
is therefore good reason to come up with new theories to explain the 
evidence. I and others are proposing a hypothesis (rather than 
deriving a theory from anything) that X + qatal does not mean 
sequential (though it may be used for sequential events in marked 
contexts) but wayyiqtol does mean sequential. Such a hypothesis is 
falsifiable by finding unambiguous cases which contradict the 
hypothesis; but (especially in the case of real language rather than 
physics experiments) very occasional exceptions which can be explained 
(even rather tortuously) in other ways are not sufficient to falsify 
the hypothesis.

You are invited (not obliged of course) to show evidence to falsify 
our hypotheses; if we who proposed them cannot give other explanations 
of the apparent exceptions, we need to modify the hypotheses or 
discard them. I have already made some modifications to my original 
statement of the hypothesis (e.g. in allowing X + qatal to be actually 
sequential in cases where apparent simultaneity is in focus), but have 
not yet found evidence requiring me to discard it. I accept the danger 
of the hypothesis becoming meaningless or tautologous (e.g. X + qatal 
means past or present or future!) but I think it still has some 
meaningful and explanatory content. I have yet to see alternative 
hypotheses with meaningful content, apart from the traditional 
four-component model, to explain wayyiqtol and X + qatal.

Do you have any evidence, other than your theory of the verb forms in 
Genesis 41:50-52, that Ephraim and Manasseh were NOT twins? It makes 
sense within the overall framework of Genesis: Ephraim and Manasseh 
parallel Jacob and Esau, and seeing the parallel Jacob blesses Ephraim 
before Manasseh (48:20). It is certainly possible, and by no means 
improbable, that they were twins, and therefore this proposed 
falsification of my hypotheses fails.

You wrote "the idea of wayyiqtol as sequential - chuck that one, too": 
Are you really suggesting discarding an idea which explains 97% of the 
very many occurrences just because not all can be proved to be 
sequential? OK, we need to deal with the 3%, but that's another 
matter.

Peter Kirk

______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re: Gen 4:1, X + qatal (Peter)
Author:  ronning AT ilink.nis.za at internet
Date:    08/02/1999 16:22


<snip>

If your rule causes you to make Ephraim and Manasseh twins, 
in my opinion you have the tail wagging the dog, and it's 
time to chuck the rule.  In any case, I don't think that 
there is any greater burden on me to disprove the rule than 
there is on you (or others) to establish it, and I  suspect 
that the proposers of this rule are being driven more by 
theory than by fair consideration of all textual examples (I 
will grant that people in good will think that they are 
deriving these theories consistent with the text).

Similarly with the idea of wayyiqtol as sequential - chuck 
that one, too
<snip>