Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Bryan, 
> Hi Dave, thanks for your post.  You wrote:
> 
> >Bryan:  We must give
> > > him room for temporal overlay, paraphrase, leitmotif, slowing narrative
> > > time, and, as you say, parallel threads. 
> > 
> > But how can this be done with a form that is "inherently 
> > sequential"?  That's the big question, and I don't really see an 
> > answer in this post.  
> 
> Well, the writer just does it.  He may do unusual things, but they are
> obviously not impossible.  No one put him in grammar-and-composition prison
> for his relatively jarring or sudden back-loop.

"The writer just does it."  Well, so much for scientific inquiry ;-)  I'm 
sorry, but I need more than this.  I'm not saying it's not a back-
loop, but I am saying that it is clear and compelling evidence that 
the WP is NOT an inherently sequential form.  That's the simplest 
explanation, and as John has pointed out, if we drop the 
sequentiality idea then we have 100% of the data explained.  Is 
100% better than 97%?

> > > A couple things are going on with all these wayyiqtols is Gen 42, and
> with
> > > 42:8 specifically.  For one, the advance of time is by small steps.  As
> you
> > > have pointed out, several events don't *need* to be sequential in a
> real
> > > world.  The Hebrew writer in this way stretches narrative time, sort of
> > > putting the camera into slow-motion, by using a preponderance of the
> > > mainline narrative forms but actually describing very little progress. 
> In
> > > this particular meeting between Jacob's sons, this nicely achieves the
> kind
> > > of tension which is appropriate to a momentous event in the same way as
> > > it's achieved in a movie at a critical moment.
> > 
> > But in a movie we have (usually) clear indicators that we're in a 
> > flashback or a sudden change of scene.  I still don't see any 
> > explanation of how a Hebrew writer could accomplish this sort of 
> > artistry using a form that is *inherently* and *necessarily* 
> > sequential.  It seems to me that if he did, it would defeat his 
> > purpose because the inherent and necessary meaning of the verb 
> > is contradictory to what he's trying to do.
> 
> How about _Citizen Kane_?  Famous for it's 'shock-cutting!' (abrupt cutting
> to scenes that are widely separated in time and place)  Orsen Wells should
> have been put in story-telling jail?   ;-)   (I heard you.  You said
> "usually" re movies)  The interpretation that there is temporal overlay in
> Gen 42:8 is principled. The temporal overlay *is* clearly identified by the
> repetition of the wayyiqtol of nkr.  See our friend Randall Buth's 1994 
> article in _BH and Discourse Linguistics_ or Collins 1995 in _Tyndale
> Bulletin_ for the parameters for identifying temporal overlay and more
> examples of temporal overlay that begin with wayyiqtol.  In such cases,
> sequentiality is not cancelled any more than it is for a discourse-initial
> wayyiqtol.  In other languages, good narratives often begin with the
> narrative form, a form which if not inherently perfective and/or
> sequential, defaults for such.  Here's the first sentence of the first book
> I pulled off the shelf, Michener's _The Source_: "On Tuesday the freighter
> steamed through the Straights of Gibraltar..."  Such a contruction drops
> us, to start with, in the *middle* of a story.  Gen 42:8 drops us, like a
> revisited beginning, in the middle of a story. 

Several things: first, the Michener quote begins with a temporal 
indicator, not a form equivalent or similar to the usual 
characterization of a Hebrew WP (i.e. a sequential form, which in 
English would probably need to say "Then the freighter 
steamed...") so it's hardly a parallel.  Second, it's not necessary to 
cancel sequentiality if it's not there in the first place!  Furthermore, 
the convoluted explanations that the discourse camp has come up 
with for phenomona like this are impossibly and unnecessarily 
complex, and it seems that the only purpose for them is to try and 
preserve an idea that is as unnecessary as it is inadequate.

> > > Second, the particular type of case where the writer repeats a previous
> > > event (called back-looping or back-referencing) with a wayyiqtol and
> then
> > > resumes the narrative is temporal overlay.  This is what's going on in
> > > 42:8.  To, in a sense, refuse to demote the event to off-the-line
> material
> > > the second time it is mentioned is basically at odds with the standard
> use
> > > of the form.  On the other hand, the jarring use of the form creates
> > > attention to the passage that is appropriate to its thematic
> importance. 
> > 
> > I'm afraid I can't even make sense of this.  Yes, it's temporal 
> > overlay.  But again, temporal overlay is inherently contradictory to a 
> > chain of forms that are inherently sequential.  This is not a 
> > caricature of the idea of sequentiality, it's the logical conclusion 
> > that we end up at if the WP is inherently sequential.  OTOH, if it's a 
> > simple-statement tense/form/whatever-we-call-it, then it's a very 
> > nice form for doing what you describe because the "jarring use" 
> > comes about because of the semantic content of the clause, not 
> > because of the verb form.  This provides a smooth and unified 
> > explanation of the chain of WP clauses and allows the writer the 
> > flexibility you describe (and I agree that he has that flexibility) 
> > without having to violate the "inherent" force of the verb form.
> > 
> 
> The synchronization of sequentiality and temporal overlay are not
> impossible (forgive my double-negative--I use it purposely to suggest the
> jarring nature of this event) if we can give a principled identification of
> the temporal overlay's 'new beginning' and if we can grant that a
> sequential form can begin a discourse, which the wayyiqtol plainly does.

And again, the very definition of "sequential" precludes such uses 
unless one can show incontrovertibly that there is a particular 
situation that does in fact cancel sequentiality.  The WP begins 
new discourses, it begins whole books, it picks up a thread after 
an aside or a direct discourse, and yet we're still supposed to buy 
the idea that it is inherently and necessarily "sequential."  If we 
throw out this idea, we have the same jarring back-loop 
accomplished by simple tenses that one would normally expect to 
be simple narrative, but which the semantics of the clause show 
are pulling us back several steps.  I don't see why this is such a 
hard concept; it is a simple, linguistically sound and elegant 
account of the generation of the WP form in a wide and diverse 
variety of contexts, providing a unified account of the syntactic form 
and the wide array of situations in which it is generated.  What's 
the problem?

> > > In this particular passage, the writer wanted to bring attention to
> this
> > > tense meeting between the brothers and the important thematic root nkr.
>  In
> > > a way the Joseph cycle (as well as the Judah/Tamar pericope) is about
> > > "nkr-ing."  Jacob recognizes his son's special garment stained with
> blood
> > > in Gen 37:33, but he fails to recognize the ruse of his hateful sons. 
> > > Judah is then bested by Tamar's clever ruse when he recognizes the
> damning
> > > evidence possessed by her in 38:26.  Joseph now in 42:7 and 8
> recognizes
> > > his brothers, but reconcilliation will only be possible when they
> recognize
> > > and accept that Joseph is a favored man, something that is achieved
> through
> > > the clever series of tests by the disguised (also the root nkr) Joseph.
>  
> > > 
> > > In summary, I would say that this momentous event and the repetition of
> the
> > > root nkr (four times) in these verses are at just the strategic place
> for
> > > the Hebrew writer to do something at odds with the verbal system in
> > > general.  In fact, I would consider 42:8 to be an exception that proves
> the
> > > rule, so to speak.
> > 
> > I submit that this kind of exegetical-linguistic back-flip is 
> > unnecessary unless we are heck-bent on preserving the idea of 
> > sequentiality at all costs, a preservation which is also unnecessary.
> > 
> 
> Are you suggesting that the repetition of the root nkr is not thematic? 

I didn't say anything at all about repetition of the root or thematic 
matters.

> That there is not literary tension in the meeting of the brothers which is
> linguistically facilitated?  

Neither did I say anything about this.  All these things come out 
just the same without sequentiality; the major difference is that we 
don't have to resort to gymnastics to account for the verb forms.

Whether you see these literary-types of issues
> or not, I think you should grant that I may be agnostic as to the idea that
> the wayyiqtol is a sequential form, but that I may, as an important and
> sincere search for its meaning, defend the idea with every possible means
> before I dismiss it.  

Why?  Why should it need to be defended when there are so many 
contexts where it clearly doesn't work?

If nothing else, I think my explantion points out the
> dismissal of a sequential wayyiqtol based on Gen 42:8 and like cases is
> tenuous.  It cautions against an overly wooden (I'm struggling for the best
> word) or legalistic concept of sequentiality.  

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree that your explanation shows 
anything to be tenuous.  It does, to me, show the lengths to which 
folks are willing to go in order to defend an unsatisfactory tradition, 
and I still don't understand why.  Sequentiality is not a necessary 
factor in the form, it's as simple as that.  Once we accept that fact, 
exegesis becomes a lot easier, and so does accounting for the 
range of contexts in which the form is used.

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