Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Schmuel <Schmuel AT escape.com>]

Hi b-hebrew,

   Since we had some interesting discussions of verses that may be questions,
I will bring up another, very well known verse, where this issue arises.

Exodus 6:3
And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, 
and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty,
but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them. 

   Similar to before, my main interest here is grammatical, not translation 
by doctrine, 
or the theories of textual consistency, and especially not JEPD theories :-)

   Some translations add a question mark.  

   And the KJB translation above appears to be essentially a grammatical 
question - "was I not".  
And perhaps the lack of a question mark means the interrogatory nature is a 
little less forceful,
more like a rhetorical question. 

   Does the Hebrew grammar have grammatical construction or hints that
the verse is interrogatory as opposed to the declarative 
        "I was not known to them" 
- or is the translation decision simply contextual ?

   Surprisingly, I checked back a bit, and haven't seen this asked on the 
forum.

    Thanks so much.. excellent forum.

Shalom,
Steven Avery
Queens, NY
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/