Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

Peter, 
> The problem I see with your sort of approach is that it explains 
> nothing. 

I'm not sure what you mean by this.  In English we have a "simple" 
past tense that is not marked for anything in particular; in Greek 
we have the aorist, which is essentially the same thing; my 
approach sees the WP as comparable (though not equivalent) to 
this type of form.  Please develop "explains nothing" in more detail?

At least you are trying to make some sort of syntactic 
> distinction between wayyiqtol and X-qatal. Some contributors seem to 
> be trying to say that there is no semantic difference between the 
> different verb forms but all is a matter of pragmatics.

Yes.  I assume thata different form must signal something, we're 
just not sure what yet.

> When you put forward your hypothesis on X-qatal, I may well try to 
> shoot it down. Doubtless (unless it is so vague as to be 
> unfalsifiable) I will find possible counter-examples, and you will 
> explain them according to your hypothesis and/or modify your 
> hypothesis. But I will not feel that I have been set up, rather that 
> you are the one who has made yourself a target. Surely this is part of 
> normal academic debate.

When I mentioned being set up, I was referring to the statement 
that it would take more than a handful of examples (my phrase, not 
yours, of course) to falsify it.  Basically I was asking how big the 
playing field is.  And yes, this sort of thing is part of academic 
debate, one of the more fun parts IMO, and yes, I'm working on a 
hypothesis of the x-qatal as well as the weqatal.  After looking at 
several more examples, I'm backing away from my previous 
suggestion (that's all it was) that it's not really a separate syntactic 
feature.
 
> PS I was not trying to make a Jacob-Esau and Ephraim-Manasseh parallel 
> based on linguistics, but on general theological themes. Sorry if that 
> goes beyond the scope of this list, but it is here (unusually!) a 
> valid part of the argument for a linguistic point.

Of course.  I had no problem with that, and as far as I know neither 
did anybody else.  I find the "general theological themes" more 
than a little tenuous, and in the absence of any real linguistic 
connection, I'm not sure I buy the parallel idea.  That's all.

Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
A Bible that's falling apart means a life that isn't.