Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 05/08/2004 05:48, C. Stirling Bartholomew wrote:

> ... I was
> looking for some sort of formal mechanism in Hebrew which would function
> like the Greek article to indicate that this person is already on stage.
> Perhaps there is no such formal mechanism in Hebrew. Perhaps there is some
> other means of accomplishing the same function.
>
>  
Well, my suggestion is that the use of a simple name, with no title, 
father's name, place of origin etc signals this.

Since you mentioned Abraham, let's see if this applied to the minor 
characters in the Abraham story from Genesis:

Kedorlaomer king of Elam (14:1,9) > Kedorlaomer (14:4,5,17)
Egyptian maidservant Hagar (16:1,3) > Hagar (16:4,6,7,8,15,16) > Hagar 
the Egyptian (21:9) > Hagar (21:14,17)
Abimelech king of Gerar (20:2) > Abimelech (20:3,4,8,9,10,14,15,17,18, 
21:22,25,26,27,29,32)
Ephron son of Zohar (23:8) > Ephron the Hittite (23:10) > Ephron 
(23:13,14,16,17)
Rebekah... daughter of Bethuel... (24:15) > Rebekah 
(24:29,30,45,58,59,60,61,63,67)
A brother named Laban (24:29) > Laban (24:50)

This suggests that what I said is the general pattern, although not 
necessarily perfectly followed.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/