Biblical Hebrew Forum

["B. M. Rocine" <brocine AT twcny.rr.com>]

Hi Peter, you wrote:
> I am also rather attracted by your "had become" translation of Gen 1:2.
> But I wonder if HAYTA actually implies this or just "was".

This stuff is huge isn't it?

text here noted and snipped

> Now how can we decide if Hebrew HAYTA implies this previous opposite
> state? I suppose we need to look at a wide range of uses and see if
> there are any where this implication is either impossible or a key part
> of the argument. That would be an interesting little research topic.
>

Isn't this little research project just what the lexicographers have done?
I didn't get the idea that HYH means "happen; become" all by my little
lonesome self.  ;-)

I have the BDB and the HALOT at home.  I can send you the HYH entry from the
HALOT off-list, seeing I have it in on CD, if you think your software will
support a view.

> Meanwhile, could we translate BARA' in Gen 1:1 also as pluperfect and so
> 1:1-2 as more like the following?
>
> "In the beginning God had created the heavens and the earth, but the
> earth had become wild and waste; there was now darkness on the face of
> the deep, but the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters."
>

It works, but personally, I do not regard the X-qatal in narrative as quite
the equivalent of the English pluperfect, although it seems very close,
because both the English pluperfect and the X-qatal refer to a state that
the subject has obtained by the time the writer is talking about.  On
philological grounds, and by its distribution in narrative discourse and BH
poetry, I judge X-qatal to pin the attribute, which is identified by the
verbal root, onto the subject of the verb.  So qal qatal BARA' is "he is (or
was) a creator," admittedly similar to "he had created."  To me, the trouble
with the pluperfect designation for X-qatal is that pluperfect is more
temporally deictic than the BH X-qatal.

Shalom,
Bryan

B. M. Rocine
Living Word Church
6101 Court St. Rd.
Syracuse, NY 13206

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