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  • From: "Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>
  • To: "Biblical Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: áòðééï: `ad hayom hazeh
  • Date: Tue, 8 Feb 2000 06:42:00 -0700


Jonathan,
> As Baruch pointed out, Don Isaac Abarbanel writes in the introduction to his
> commentary on Former Prophets that the phrase "until this day" indicates the
> passage of much time between the event itself until its literary
> description. For had the events been described during the time of Joshua or
> near it, there would have been no call to use such a phrase, which indicates
> the passage of a considerable length of time.

I don't see why it has to indicate a "considerable" length of time. I
never suggested that the writing took place during the time of
Joshua, but I can easily see the phrase having applicability less
thana hundred years later, especially in ANE culture.

> Can you imagine someone today writing "Nazis aere feared and hated until
> this day", only 55 years after the end of World War II, when Holocaust
> survivors still live and the memory is still fresh, or second generation?
> Perhaps in another 1-200 years such a phrase will have relevance. Today it
> sounds premature.

Excuse me, but I have in fact heard that very phrase used many,
many times. This is a judgment call on your part and it doesn't
seem to square with the way people, scores of Americans at least,
actually use the phrase. Why should it be a legitimate expression
even 10 years after the end of the war? Because the Nazis were
supposedly destroyed with Berlin. Yet we know that wasn't the
case, so even after the destruction of their empire, i.e. "even to this
day," they are feared. I'm afraid you haven't made your case with
this example. I still see no reason why the phrase has to denote a
very long period of time.


Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth;
give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name.
Psalm 86:11



  • Re: áòðééï: `ad hayom hazeh, Dave Washburn, 02/08/2000

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