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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Definite Article 7:14

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  • From: JoeWallack AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Definite Article 7:14
  • Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2007 19:19:40 EDT


On 22/03/2007 22:16, JoeWallack AT aol.com wrote:
> ... Specifically here Gesenius changed his opinion in general
> regarding the meaning of the Hebrew definite article as well as its
> application to 7:14 (that the definite article is indeed intended) in a
> subsequent publication.
>


Peter Kirk:
"Your quotation comes from, or is unchanged in, the 1910 second English
edition of Gesenius as revised by Kautzsch and translated by Cowley
(GKC). Gesenius himself passed away in 1842. So he can hardly have
changed his opinion subsequent to 1910. If GKC does not agree with what
Gesenius himself wrote on this issue, that must be because Kautzsch or
Cowley had a different opinion from Gesenius, perhaps informed by nearly
70 years advance in scholarship. Of course with the benefit of another
nearly 100 years of scholarship we may want to make further revisions.
But we shouldn't attribute our new opinions to Gesenius.

Meanwhile it is certainly true that the definite article is used in
subtly different ways in different languages. Listen carefully to a
mother tongue speaker of German, French or Spanish who doesn't speak
English very well, and you will spot a number of unexpected uses of the
definite article. The differences between Hebrew and English usages are
doubtless even greater. So your argument against GKC's explanation "That
the Hebrew word for the definite article would sometimes have a meaning
of the indefinite article is a contradiction" cannot stand. In fact
there is a particular context in which Hebrew uses the (usually
definite) article and English uses the indefinite article, and there is
no contradiction.

But I would not want to defend the GKC interpretation of Isaiah 7:14."



JW:
As I indicated, Gesenius' earlier publication asserted that the Hebrew
definite article did not always indicate the definite in Hebrew! He
subsequently
corrected himself to assert that the Hebrew definite article always means the

definite in Hebrew. I agree that something considered grammatically definite
in Hebrew could be considered grammatically indefinite in English and
properly
translated with "a".



Joseph







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