Biblical Hebrew Forum

[John Ronning <ronning AT ilink.nis.za>]

Bryan, you wrote:

> Hi John,  It's a lot of fun hacking through real examples!  you wrote:
>

Yes, I agree it's more fun than talking in technicalities
and theories, and more understandable for those like me with
limited background in linguistic theory.


You wrote concerning Gen 18:7
> . . .
> Doesn't our world knowledge inform us that Abraham ran
> while Sarah baked?

That was exactly the point that I was making, and that the
real world would tell us the same thing if the wayyiqtol was
used instead of the X + qatal, thus we have functional
equivalence (in this case).

Concerning Gen 24:46

> . . .
> Your example from Gen 24:46 is very interesting, and the events are indeed
> sequential.  Here we see that the Hebrew story-teller has options available
> to him.  Certainly, Abraham's servant *could* have used a wayyiqtol for
> representing R's watering the camels and in so doing he would represent the
> little history as a series of events.  By choosing for the second clause an
> X-qatal, he represents the little history as a package.  A real series of
> events does not require representation as a series of events.  Why the
> "package" representation?  It enabled Abraham's servant to point to the
> attribute of Reb. as a fulfillment of his prayer for godspeed.  "Then I
> drank, but even of the camels--she was a waterer (of them)."

If I understand you correctly, A's servant is representing
the two events as
simultaneous, even though in the real world they were
sequential (This reminds me of Peter's treatment of another
example I gave).  By my model, A's servant had to use qatal
for the second verb because he decided to depart from normal
clause word order and put the object first, thus separating
the verb from the conjunction (possibly a desire to avoid
two consecutive wayyiqtols with different subjects).

Anyway, your allowance for flexibility in the way a series
of events is represented in narrative could also extend to
the interpretation of a series of wayyiqtols, couldn't it?
(I.e. why the straitjacket of sequence?)

A methodological question - how can we determine which of us
is right, if we both think we have models which can explain
the data?  Can we propose a hypothetical sentence or a
paragraph or comparison of two descriptions of the same
event that, if we found it in BH, we could answer this
question?  Can anyone else help us on this?

Shalom,

John