Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Dave Washburn <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

On Thursday 24 June 2004 11:18, Ken Penner wrote:
> > I was wondering if any listers had strong opinions one way or another
> > about M. O'Connor's, "Hebrew Verse Structure." What do you
> > think of his
> > line constraints? If you find them unacceptable, what system
> > do you use for determining line length?

[snip]
> O'Connor's method could possibly be salvaged by calculating a new set of
> constraints for Qumran poetry. At the very least, the maximum allowable
> unit count needs to be increased. 
['nother snip]

Ken,
I was wondering about this as I read your analysis.  How likely or possible 
is 
it that poetic structure changed between the time of most BH poetry and the 
Qumran poem you analyzed?  If there was a lot of change, that would render 
O'Connor's approach useless for the Qumran poetry but perhaps useful for the 
BH poetry.  I don't know; as I said before, I'm not a poetry person.  But I'd 
be interested in your view about the possibilities of such a major shift in 
poetic structure and conventions between the two relative time periods?

-- 
Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
Learning about Christianity from a non-Christian
is like getting a kiss over the telephone.