Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Niels Peter Lemche <npl AT teol.ku.dk>]

Yes, the wayyixtov forms are there, but I do not remember the consecutive
perfect forms, neither the exchange between the two. Mesha ll. 10-11 is
interesrting: wybn lh nlk ywr'l `t ´trt w`ltchm bqr v`chzh v`hrg `t
cl h´m ... A consective imperfect followed by another consecutive imperfect
although the first action is leading to the second.

You also find traces of the system in the Yavneh Yam (Mesad Hashavyahu)
letter  and as far as I remember in the Lachish letters. Siloam l. 5 also is
worth considering. 

But I stay with my verdict that you don't have the complicate but very
effective system of the SBH (standard biblical Hebrew).

NPL


        -----Original Message-----
        From:   yochanan bitan-buth [SMTP:ButhFam AT compuserve.com]
        Sent:   Wednesday, July 19, 2000 17:24
        To:     Biblical Hebrew
        Cc:     b-hebrew
        Subject:        re:"Is Biblical Hebrew a language?"-NPL

        vayyixtov NPLemche:
        >Here Mesha provided-I believe five examples-a few more inscriptions
some
        >more, but never the system we find in Gen-2 Kgs. What I cannot say,
and
        >nobody can say is whether or not this system was in use in the Iron
Age,

        yaa salaam, ma pit'om?!
        Absolute numbers in a short text may not be definitive, but function
is.
        Nevertheless, in the short section from "Omri King of Israel AND he
        tormented ..."  up to  "...and I made the waterworks" there are NINE
        vayyiqtols, more in the rest of that text.
        What is much more impressive about Mesha is the ELEGANT use of the
system,
        a usage that goes against the grammatical expectations of modern BH
        grammars and even ILLUSTRATES those points of Gen-2Kgs that conflict
with
        the "sterile grammars". How could one say "never the system we find
in
        Gen-2Kgs."? It's starring us in the face.

        E.g. Mesha correctly uses vayyiqtol for 'thematic main line'
narratives,
        even beginning a sequence after a preposed noun phrase "and Omri ...
and he
        tormented". Something that occurs in BH too, but always raises
modern
        eyebrows. (See Isaiah 6.1 for a nice example). 

        And Mesha illustrates the X-qatal used as a dramatic pause (veIsrael
avod
        avad `olam) for what could otherwise have been a sequential
vayyiqtol but
        was elegantly put into a dramatic pause structure. Again, not in the
        grammars but EXCELLENT BH (see Gen 19.23-25, 44.3-4, Jud 6.21 [and
Est
        7.6-10 for any doubters, see Buth "Functional Grammar Hebrew and
Aramaic"
        in W. Bodine, ed., Discourse Analysis of Biblical Literature. SBL,
1995:
        77-102]). 

        The long building section in Mesha also shows the x-qatal
structures,
        appropriate to lists, again reflecting the overall understanding of
the
        elegant system. 

        Moabite exactly shows the living style of Gen-2Kgs. 

        Moderns need to internalize the old BH style and they will then be
        delighted with such classic Moabite. 
        You could hardly ask for more impressive confirmation. So much so,
that it
        would be expected that Moabite and 1st temple, Judean Hebrew were
mutually
        intelligible and much tighter than, say, Hebrew/Phoenician. For
more,
        please see my article on "Methodological Collision between Source
Criticism
        and Discourse Analysis:  The Problem of 'Unmarked Temporal Overlay'
and the
        Pluperfect/non-sequential wayyiqtol" in Biblical Hebrew and
Discourse
        Linguistics, ed. Robert Bergen. Eisenbrauns, 1994:138-154].

        bivraxot
        Randall Buth

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