Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

Hi Peter,

Exactly. Actually, Rogland conducts just such an investigation in his 
monograph.

Also, this insensitivity to constructional contexts is evident more 
widely through Rolf's dissertation, not just with the analysis of 
so-called prophetic perfects. For example, he lumps all uses of the 
present together, eg gnomics, performatives, etc. So too with other 
future uses, eg hypothetical/conditional clauses. All constructions are 
lumped together either under past, present, or future.

Regards,
David Kummerow.



Peter wrote:

[snip]
> Can the same principle be applies to the so-called "prophetic perfect"
> in the Hebrew Bible? This perhaps depends on the context and genre. The
> vision in Daniel 8 is clearly of this apocalyptic nature. And therefore
> the WAYYIQTOLs in 8:6 etc must be understood as having past reference
> relative to the deictic centre, and in fact as being normal narrative
> past WAYYIQTOLs except that this particular narrative is an apocalyptic
> one of the future. Might the same be true of passages like Isaiah
> 8:23b-9:6 (9:1b-7 in English), which is introduced with WH'XRWN "in the
> latter time" followed by a QATAL? A study of how far this principle can
> be extended to other QATALs and WAYYIQTOLs which have been described as
> "prophetic perfect" would be an interesting exercise. But this
> illustrates the danger of taking verb forms which are used to describe
> future events and classifying as "non-past", and so as counter-examples
> to a tense-based analysis, without properly understanding the genre and
> the deictic centre.