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b-hebrew - Re: bereshit (translations) Paul

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  • From: "Ian Hutchesson" <mc2499 AT mclink.it>
  • To: "Biblical Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: bereshit (translations) Paul
  • Date: Tue, 19 Mar 2002 17:04:33 +0100


>Since you have convinced yourself,

Paul, you've got no reason to couch your comment
like that. I have not convinced myself of
anything. I don't operate like that -- and I have
attempted to outline my procedures in the past.
Let me give you a list of the various possible
analyses (and you may happily add more if you can
think of any):

1) br'$yt governs the clauses before v.3 which provides the
main clause;
2) br'$yt governs the first clause and v.2 provides the main
clause, Rashi's approach;
3) br'$yt governs the first clause and is a sentence fragment,
with v.2 attached to v.3, as a kind of heading seen
elsewhere in the literature;
4) br'$yt stands by itself unqualified and unrelated to
anything, making v.1 a main clause.

I have put forward biblical evidence that at least
supports #2 and #3, and there is nothing that I
have said that goes against position #1, which I
have supported for literary structure -- though I'm
not wedded to the idea. The first important thing I
argued for was that not only do b-nouns take clauses
but they are nearly always qualified in some way.
This is met by the first three positions above.

Only later have I suggested position #1, for there
is no reason I know of that if one clause can be
subordinated, more than one can't. This is where the
problem apparently arises. I have an arbitrary ban
placed upon the possibility of b-noun time phrases
taking more than one clause after I showed that they
could govern at least one and very often did. I
thought the problem may have been that one thought
that b-noun time phrases couldn't handle complexity
of clauses, but no, it simply had to be more than one
clause, so I eventually provide an example which is
seen by translators of many languages to be such a
beast, only to be told that as modern English
translators don't translate it that way, it's not
acceptable. (This is ultimately an argument as per
position #2.)

As I said, I am not bound by position #1. It is how
br'$yt relates to its context which is the point of
contention. The evidence seems to point strongly
against position #4. Nearly all b-nouns are
qualified, by clauses, in constructs, with
adjectives or in anaphora.

>then go ahead and publish it on the
>website you're building. People then have the chance to accept or reject
>your conclusions. As it is, this thread is going nowhere, because neither
>side is going to budge.

I am often "budgeable". I don't have a great
knowledge of Hebrew, though I have a relatively
good knowledge of linguistics. I put forward an
analysis here because I was looking for feedback
that was linguistically sound. I can often spot
that sort of stuff, I have seen a lot of it here,
and appreciate it.

>In short, what's *your* point in trying to continue this if you are going to
>reject the comments that you receive when you put forth your proposition?

As I am not committed to a rearguard backs-to-the-
wall stalwart apologetics for position #1, I still
would like to resolve the variety of possibilities.


Ian







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