Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Liz Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>]

Dear All,
I mistakenly titled one message a while back as VSO.
I meant to entitle it SVO in narrative.

> From: Ian Hutchesson
 >
> Dear Alviero,
>
>
> You wrote:
>
> >I do not see why the phrase "God created a raw reality" is not a
> suitable
> >interpretation of *weha'arec hayetâ tohû wabohû*--whatever the
> exact meaning
> >of the individual terms is.
>
> Firstly, no agent is indicated (and a status quo is stated, unless you can
> see some definitive reason to believe that we should read hyth as
> diventare); and secondly, there is nothing I can see to indicate
> that wh'rc
> hyth thw wbhw is to be related temporally after 1:1. I cannot see any
> reason from the text for getting to "God created a raw reality" nor have I
> discerned any stated argument to support the idea.
>
Dear Alviero,
The examples you gave in a previous post on sentences which
were protasis and apodosis were
construct + finite + wayiqtol.
Unless I missed it, none was construct + finite + wa+ sentence subject +
qatal.
 People on this list have seemed to reach a concensus
that SVO presents an adverbial aside, a parenthetic comment, outside
the main action. One example given was Gen. 44:4.
hm yaC)w ...weyosef )amar...
*When* they had not traveled far out of the city,
Joseph said to his steward.
The two parts of this sentences are to be understood as simultaneous.
What is your opinion?

Best
Liz

Lisbeth S. Fried
Visiting Scholar
University of Michigan
Department of Near Eastern Studies
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
lizfried AT umich.edu

Spem successus alit.