Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>]

Jude 14, the Greek example
> is, I understand, taken from a quotation from the book of Enoch, and so is
> a translation of a Hebrew original. Rolf, of course you know a lot more
> about this book than I do and can perhaps tell us what verb form was used
> in the original.


The book of Enoch exists in full in an Ethiopic (Ge´ez) version.  In 6:6 the
name of the mountain Hermon is said to come from the root XRM (to devote to
destruction). There is no such root in Ethiopic, and this suggests that the
original language was Hebrew or Aramaic. The DSS fragments of the book are
written in Aramaic. There are also Greek manuscripts of the book, but they
are young.

Commentaries dealing with Jude 1:14 almost unanimously say that Jude quoted
his words from the book of Enoch. Such comments reveal  methodological
flaws, since either the problem of induction is ignored, or the words of
others are just repeated without any independent research, or both things 
are true.
We cannot with certainty know whether the manuscripts of Jude are older or
younger than the Greek text of Enoch, although the manuscripts we have
suggest that the Greek Enoch is younger. The Aramaic fragment of Enoch 1:9,
which Jude is supposed to have quoted, has only 21 letters in three
lines, which tells us very little. The Greek words of Jude 1:14 and Ethiopic
words of Enoch 1:9 are very similar, and the fact that an Ethipic perfect
(QATAL) is used where the Greek text has an aorist also suggests a close
relationship, since neither of the forms is the dafeult form used with 
future
reference. A prefix form (YENAGGER) is the usual form used with future
reference in Ethiopic, but suffix forms (NAGARA) are used as well. As for 
the
relationship between the two texts there are three possibilities, 1) Jude
quoted Enoch, 2) Enoch quoted Jude, and 3) both quoted a common source.
There is no way to know what is correct, but I cannot recall a single
instance where these possibilities have been mentioned. This illustrates the
fundamental problems in Hebrew grammars and grammatical studies: the problem
of induction is ignored, and conclusions are drawn and presented as truth
without any quality control.

Then back to the future reference. A future tense in a tense language is a
future tense in any genre. An aspect in an asepctual language neither
changes its nature in any genre or with future or past reference; an
imperfective aspect continues to be an imperfective aspect in any context,
and the same is true with the perfective aspect. In English, the perfective
and imperfective aspects (represented by the participle and perfect,
respectively) are mutually exclusive. According to my analysis, based on the
intersection of event time by reference time, Hebrew and Aramaic perfective
and imperfective aspects have some characteristics in common and others that
are opposites. This means that the use of aspects in these languages is more
flexible than in English. The default use of a verb form represents the
conventions of the people, but sometimes, as in the case of the Greek Jude
and the Ethiopic Enoch, a form that is more rarely used with a particular
reference, is chosen for some purpose. Instead of seeking an ad hoc
explanation for this seemingly strange use, it is better to ask whether the
grammars can be wrong and we should adjust our own thinking.

The Ethiopic Enoch may have been translated from Aramaic, and I would like
to give some statistics of my analysis of the Aramaic text of Daniel.

YIQTOL:  Past: 34 - present 27 - future 88 - present completed 1, modal:
28 - pre-past: 0

QATAL:   Past: 216 - present 11 - future 3 - present completed 44, modal:
0 - pre-past: 7

Part. act:   Past: 103 - present 48 - future 4 - present completed 2, modal:
3 - pre-past: 1

QATAL+
part.act:    Past: 29 - present 0 - future 1 - present completed 0, modal:
 - pre-past: 1

The numbers indicate the linguistic conventions (which forms are generally
used for which reference), but they also show that the forms can be used  in
different ways. The default form for past reference is QATAL, but there are 
34 YIQTOLs (19.1%) with past reference and 3 QATALs (1.1%) with future 
reference. We find the same situation in Aramaic as in Ugaritic: the same 
prefix forms are used both with past and future reference. Please note the 
use of YIQTOL in the same situation of Nebuchadnezzar eating and being 
drenched as future and past actions:

4:22(25) " he will  eat" (YIQTOL) ; "he will be drenched" (part)
4:29(32) "he will eat" (YIQTOL);
4:30(33) "he ate" (YIQTOL /)KL/);   "he was drenched" (YIQTOL)
5:21      " he ate" (YIQTOL);  "he was drenched" (YIQTOL)

The meaning of any verb form is the same in any genre, but for particular 
purposes, connected with genre, topic and focus, emphasis etc. particular 
forms that usually have other functions can be chosen.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo