Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Neil Mc Fadzen" <nmcf AT optusnet.com.au>]

Dear Ben

Thank you for your suggestion and although I am familiar Young's commentary I 
will check it again as you describe. However, I wonder if Young deals 
specifically with malkut because I suspect along with most commentators 
hewouls be using a translation using 'reign' rather than the NWT's 
'kingship'. I further suspect that Young would simply deal with the 
historical controversy over Jehoiakim's 'third year' of Daniel 1:1 against 
Jehoiakim's 'fourth year' of Jeremiah 25:1.

Regards
Neil Mc Fadzen MA
>From furuli AT online.no  Tue Nov 15 03:36:46 2005
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From: "Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>
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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Daniel 6:27 (time indefinite) II
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Dear Harold,

While I believe that the word should be the fundamental translational unit
even in idiomatic translation work, I also stress that the context
(including grammar and syntax) is the basic tool to understand which part of
the concept signaled by the word the author wants to make visible.  A single
adjective signals a concept, but together with a noun in a particular
syntactic function, the adjective can make visible something that is close
to the core meaning of a related adverb. Please consider the following two
clauses.

1) The earth stands to time idefinite.

2) The earth stands indefinitely.

Native speakers must use their intuition to tell the differences and
similarities they see between the two clauses. But the expression "to time
indefinite" functions as an adverbial exactly as does "idefinitely".
Therefore,  the Thesaurus reference of Robert can rightly be applied to
"time indefinite" and the functions of this expression.


Best regards

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo


----- Original Message -----
From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2005 11:17 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Daniel 6:27 (time indefinite) II


> Dear Robert,
>
>>Seeing as the focus of this thread seems to be what the expression
>>"time/s indefinite" communicates to the English reader and whether
>>it correcly communicates 'olam', I give the perspective of one who
>>grew up using primarily the NWT. I feel my understanding of the
>>expression was shaped at least partly by scriptural context. (one
>>does't have to be a trained linguist to recognize the role of
>>context - it's a universal tool for communication). I took the
>>expression to roughly equal 'forever' although the possibility is
>>left open in NWT that in some contexts the time period may have an
>>end. In the physical world the further something is away the more
>>unclear it becomes, so I took 'time indefinite' as a natural way of
>>expressing a long, never-ending or else undefined time period.  I
>>never thought 'oh that could be five minutes'. Actually my English
>>thesaurus gives these alternatives to the word "indefinately" "ad
>>infinitum, continually, endlessly, for ever, sine die".
>
> HH: What you're saying is true about "indefinitely," but it's not
> true about "indefinite." Here is Roget's Thesaurus on "indefinite:
>
> Main Entry:  indefinite
> Part of Speech:  adjective
> Definition:  ambiguous
> Synonyms:  broad, confused, doubtful, dubious, equivocal,
> evasive, general, ill-defined, imprecise, indeterminable,
> indeterminate, indistinct, inexact, inexhaustible, infinite,
> innumerable, intangible, loose, obscure, shadowy, uncertain, unclear,
> undefined, undependable, undetermined, unfixed, unknown, unlimited,
> unsettled, unspecific, unsure, vague, wide
>
> A couple of these glosses might give a meaning like "eternal," but most
> don't.
>
> Yours,
> Harold Holmyard