Biblical Hebrew Forum

[MarjorieAlley AT cs.com]

Rolf ---

On the question of the "Jehovah's Witness outlook on the verbal system,"  
I've just been rereading Appendix 3C "Hebrew Verbs Indicating Continuous or 
Progressive Action, " pp. 1572-1573  of the Watchtower Society's 1984 "New 
World 
Translation of the Holy Scriptures – With References."



Here is an excerpt from "Hebrew Verbs Indicating Continuous or Progressive 
Action":



"Throughout the centuries scholars have been amazed at the capability of the 
Hebrew language to express past events by using verbs in the imperfect state, 
and to express future events by using verbs in the perfect state. In an 
attempt to explain this peculiarity, they developed the theory of Waw 
Consecutive. 



Concerning this theory, O. L. Barnes, in his work A New Approach to the 
Problem of the Hebrew Tenses and Its Solution Without Recourse to 
Waw-Consecutive, 
Oxford (1965), pp. 4, 5, wrote:



'The matter has been needlessly complicated by the introduction and slavish 
adherence to the doctrine of Waw Consecutive, or its more ancient forebear 
Waw 
Conversive (the latest name proposed for it is Waw Conservative). Very 
briefly, though there have been a variety of modifications of the theme, this 
states 
that the ‘and – Waw ’ appearing before the first of a series of consecutive 
Hebrew Verbs in the Imperfect Tense, if preceded by a Hebrew Verb in the 
Perfect Tense, indicates that all of them should be read or taken as Perfects 
(instead of what they really are: Imperfects) and vice versa, provided of 
course 
certain vowels associated with the Waw in the Imperfect are present.'



Regarding the validity of this theory, O. L. Barnes wrote on p. 1 of his 
work: 'We may 

rightly ask why the ‘and – Waw ?’ has this strange converting power. Some 
recent grammars, in an attempt to by-pass the absurdity, state that it is not 
really the ‘and – Waw ?’ that has this converting power, but it is the key or 
guide we must look for to indicate the conversion; in end-result, therefore, 
it 
amounts to precisely the same thing. I trust it will be evident from what is 
stated here that in fact the ‘and – Waw ?’ neither has this power, nor is its 
assumption necessary to explain the rapid, sometimes abrupt, change in 
sequence of the Hebrew Tenses. In other words, we may dispense completely 
with the 
mythical Waw-Consecutive theory invented by grammarians.'



About one hundred years ago, Benjamin Wills Newton, in his work The Altered 
Translation of Genesis ii. 5, London, 1888, pp. 49-51, took a firm stand 
against the theory of Waw Consecutive. After giving a sample translation of 
Ge 
1:3-8, Newton concluded on pp. 50, 51:



'Throughout the chapter the future is used to denote progression. In our 
translation we rightly enough use the past, for we are unable by our future 
tense 
similarly to mark progression. There is an expansiveness in the Hebrew use of 
the future which our future has not; and, consequently, greater accuracy of 
statement. I may add that there certainly is no room for the theory of Vav 
conversive in this chapter, and no ground for saying (because our future 
cannot 
adapt itself to the elasticity of the Hebrew future) that therefore the 
Hebrew 
future is to be shorn of its prerogatives and commuted into a past. It is 
marvellous that any one should have ventured to propose anything so 
preposterous.'



[...]   The New World Translation has not followed the unfounded theory of 
Waw Consecutive when translating Hebrew verbs. This age-old theory does not 
convey the power and forcefulness of the Hebrew verbs in their original 
states. 
Therefore, the New World Translation presents the Hebrew verbs with accurate 
meaning and dynamism by maintaining a distinction between the perfect and the 
imperfect states of the Hebrew verbs."


I realize you have devoted many years of research to your project and have 
consulted numerous sources.

Can you help clarify whether this appendix in the 1984 NWT Bible played some 
part in helping to shape the direction of your research into the Hebrew 
verbal 
system?

Were you familiar with it when you started your research? I am just curious 
as to whether you attribute some degree of influence on your thinking to the 
JW 
outlook on the Hebrew verbal system?

(I realize, of course, that we all have our biases, and perhaps it is the 
ones we are *unconscious* of which are most likely to cause us to see what we 
*expect* to see when we examine the text.)

Regards,
Marjorie Alley

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