Biblical Hebrew Forum

[yochanan bitan <ButhFam AT compuserve.com>]

> > historic present): "They go to him and they stand before him and they
> > say..."
(lee martin wrote:)
> 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. 

actually, young (who did an english concordance) proposed that in his
translation in the 19th century. 
a guy named barnes argued the same in britain in the 60's. 
-----no one pays much attention --because that just isn't hebrew. 

the following was already sent to the list last week but it's short and
pays attention/ answers what you are discussing. [accepting, proposing?]

[myself:]
well, how does one say this?
no, that isn't what biblical hebrew is doing.

1. "present" is not the way hebrew storytelling is done. 
      simple test:     take the most common hebrew verb.
e.g. check out every example of vayyomer and X-amar in genesis narrative. 

you will NOT find X-yomar, nor the default present tense "Subject--omer",
only amar and vayyomer (pause:vayyomar).

for X-amar: gn.3.16, 17; 13.14; 18.17; 20.16; 27.6; (31.29; 38.11); 44.4] 
BH tells Hebrew stories in the past. surprise! :-)

2. because in future/imperfective sequences veqatal is used. (if yiqtol was
wanted, or a 'present', why use veqatal?)

3. vayyiqtol can switch from other material to refer to a perfective/past
event all by itself.

[if you're still having trouble, then 4: trust the literalistic LXX here.
it did not choose imperfect for vayyiqtol most of the time, even though
greek commonly allows imperfect in past narratives. vayyiqtol and greek
aorist indicative have broad overlap and both are perfectives. the LXX was
translated by bi/tri/quadri-linguals when people were still using and
writing literary Hebrew, i.e. BH, as well as speaking various hebrew
dialects. they knew hebrew well enough. ] (i am not saying that you cannot
know BH without the LXX, simply that it broadly confirms what you should
already know.)

blessings
randall buth