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  • From: furuli AT online.no
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: RE: [b-hebrew] Prophetic Perfect?
  • Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 22:51:56 +0200

Dear Liz,

If I were to make a translation of Isaiah 9:1,5, I had to make up my mind: is this a prophecy or is it narrative past? Bible translation is interpretation, that is unavoidable! I did not answer Julie from that perspective, i.e. I did not take a standpoint as to whether these words refer to the past or the future, but I responded to the grammatical work that she quoted, which viewed these verses as future. So my point was: this grammar says that the verses are "prophetic perfect," but if it applies them to the future, how can the authors know that it is not simple future? How can the authors know the mind of the prophet if this is not stated? My aim was to show that the term "prophetic perfect" was suspicious.

We agree that we should not translate the OT in the light of the NT, but my personal view is that Is 9 is a message about the future -this is the default interpretation of the words of a prophet (cf. 9:7) - but of course, there may be past, perfect or present reference in a prophet's words as well. I am open for arguments to the contrary, but an important point I want to put across is this: too many accounts have been interpreted as past narrative on the basis of a faulty understanding of QATAL (it is either past tense or completed or complete), and on a faulty understanding of WAYYIQTOL (it is past tense, or completed, or complete).


Best regards

Rolf


Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo




>
The perfective perfect notion was originally built on the
view that QATAL was past tense and /or signalled completed
acts. Thus, it contradicted fundamental grammatical thoughts
to have hundreds of QATALs with simple future reference. So,
in order to save the grammar
- but without any data - the psychological explanation was
invented that the action was completed in the mind of the
prophet. Please ask your constructor if he or she has any
*data* showing that the QATALs of Isaiah 9:1,5 are not just
simple futures.
Dear Rolf,
What evidence could you possibly bring to show that
these are not just simple narrative pasts?
Liz Fried
A2






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