Biblical Hebrew Forum

[TedBro AT aol.com]

Hi, All:
 
This is my first time posting... so please excuse me, if my comments go  
astray.
 
I gather that the issue under discussion is the "vav conversive."  KJV  and 
many other translations "convert" the Hebrew imperfect verb form (VAYIQRA)  
to 
the English past tense; "And He called". The selected example, Genesis 1:5 is 
 
especially interesting because the verbal root QRA appears twice in the  
verse, once in the imperfect, (VAYIQRA) with reference to God calling the  
light 
Day, and the second time in the perfect (QRA) where God calls the  darkness 
Night. 
 
Logic dictates that in the narrative sequence these two actions both  take 
place in the past... so why are different verbal form used? 
 
Rendering the imperfect as future and the perfect as past clearly does not  
work here. AND... The idea that the vav converts the imperfect to the 
perfect,  
remains hard to swallow, despite the fact that it eliminates the problem and  
makes for reasonable translation.
 
The NWT practice, as I understand it, is based on an attempt to convey  
incomplete / ongoing action with the imperfect, past or future. Hence "God 
began  
to call" whereas the perfect is translated as a complete past "and God called 
 
the darkness Night." 
 
Is any one familiar with other translations that attempt to distinguish the  
imperfect from the perfect? Or others simply acquiesce to the "conversive"  
(regardless of how they rename it) despite its structural awkwardness?
 
Thanks,
Ted Brownstein
 
 
 
In a message dated 3/21/2007 12:04:07 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
if AT math.bu.edu writes:

Marjorie,

The New World Translation renders Genesis 1:5 as: "And  God began  
calling the light Day, but the darkness he called Night."  To be  
faithful to the Hebrew I would translate it as: "Then He  called, God,  
to the light Day, and to the darkness called  Night."  There is a  
personal pronoun (YI) squeezed after the VA  of VAYIKRA, 'then he  
called', but none preceding the second KARA,  'called'. Of course, in  
order to avoid a too atrocious English I am  using "called" where the  
Hebrew has "call" only.

The KJV has  Genesis 1:5 as: "And God called the light Day, and the  
darkness he  called Night."

Isaac Fried, Boston University


 



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