Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Trevor & Julie Peterson" <speederson AT erols.com>]

Well . . . I don't know how helpful that illustration is.  I don't know that
we should suggest the ancient Semites had no way of describing the future or
even that they had no way of distinguishing between future and present.  It
seems to me that such an explanation is somewhat analogous to the suggestion
that grammatical gender is derived from animism.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Liz Fried [mailto:lizfried AT umich.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 8:42 PM
> To: Biblical Hebrew
> Subject: RE: I AM
>
>
> How about "I am becomming what I am becomming"?
>
> Good explanation, Uri.
>
> It was explained to me that the ancient Semite experienced
> life as though a rower on a row-boat. He sees the past
> perfectly; the present (if he turns his head) is past/has passed in an
> eye-blink. The future he sees not at all.
> Thus, we have a perfect tense for the past,
> and an imperfect one for everything else.
>
> Liz Fried
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: uri hurwitz [mailto:uhurwitz AT yahoo.com]
> > Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 12:16 PM
> > To: Biblical Hebrew
> > Subject: Re: I AM
> >
> >
> >
> >     Shoshana, what is in  modern Hebrew the future, e.g. ehyeh, had a
> > totally different sense in biblical usage: it was the
> "imperfect", that is
> > an action that was not concluded ( as against the "perfect" which refers
> > to the past. Both of these senses can be further refined as you may have
> > seen in recent exchanges on this list)
> >      Thus imprecise as it is, the only possible translation of
> Ehyeh asher
> > Ehyeh
> >  is: I am/will be whoever I am/will be.
> >     Uri Hurwitz
> >
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