Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Lee R. Martin" <lmartin AT vol.com>]

Dear Rodney,
Thanks for your post.  As you can see from my post on Job 1, I have been busy
elsewhere.
I have just one comment.  In regard to the following quote from your post:

>   Perhaps the best way to
> capture this in English would be with the present tense (i.e. the
> historic present): "They go to him and they stand before him and they
> say..."

This concept of story / narrative time was proposed over thirty years ago, in 
a book
on the Hebrew Verb system, a book that no one paid any attention to.  I read 
it in
1988, while sitting in the basement of the Ora B. Allison library in Memphis, 
TN, but
I cannot remember the name of the book or the author.  I have been suggesting 
this
possibility to my Hebrew students ever since that time.  As you know, the 
Greek
historical present has some similarities in usage.

--

Lee R. Martin
Pastor, Prospect Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee
Instructor in Hebrew and Old Testament
Church of God Theological Seminary
http://earth.vol.com/~lmartin/