Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear David,

I see that you admit that you have misrepresented 
me and are sorry that“ that is fine. I also see 
that you do not want to tell us what your 
academic background is.


> Hi Rolf,
>
> See below:
>
> >  Dear David,
> >
> >  This was just a sweeping statement of yours without any documentation.
> >   From our previous discussions it appears that you and I  understand
> >  fundamental linguistic concepts completely different and live in two
> >  different linguistic worlds. So I see no reason for a discussion of
> >  Hebrew verbs between you and me.
>
> The documentation is on this very list. Here's an but one example:
>
> https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew/2007-April/032068.html
> https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew/2007-April/032070.html
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew/2007-April/032069.html

RF:

Here you refer to yourself, and that is hardly 
any documentation that my reviews  regarding 
YIQTOL and WAYYIQTOL "repeatedly" have been shown 
to be wrong on this list. I invite the 
list-members to look at the references above 
themselves. Moreover, in this exchange between 
you and me that you refer to, I referred to a 
Swedish linguist by the name Norlander, and you 
also say that you disagree with him. I showed 
your arguments to Norlander, and he said that you 
evidently lacked fundamental linguistic 
knowledge. These three refrences say nothing 
about the issue, YIQTOL and WAYYIQTOL.



>  >
> >  You have also in other forums made sweeping statements, as in your
> >  review of my doctoral dissertation in "Journal of Asia Adventist
> >  Seminary".  About 18 months ago, Yitzhak Sapir raised some questions
> >  about the quality of my dissertation and asked if there were any peer
> >  reviews. Questions regarding your review should therefore be relevant
> >  for b-hebrew, both because of this and because of your claim in your
> >  last E-mail that the conclusions of my dissertation regarding YIQTOL and
> >  WAYYIQTOL have repeatedly been shown to be wrong on this list.
> >
> >  I will only mention one  point that may illuminate the claim you made in
> >  your last E-mail.  The most important error of your review is that you
> >  completely have misunderstood the basic parameters I use in my analysis
> >  of Hebrew verbs, namely event time, reference time, and deictic center.
> >  The definition of my "reference time" that you present is completely
> >  wrong, and is not found in the dissertation. And the same is true with
> >  your presentation of my "deictic center," where you misquote the
> >  dissertation, because you have not understood that my words refer to
> >  the  abstract term "deictic" and not to the parameter "deictic center".
> >  Therefore, many of your arguments against my conclusions actually hit a
> >  straw man; you cannot effectively argue against something that you have
> >  not understood!
>
> Note that I do not have a problem with this methodology per se. It is
> only the rigid application of it which I have a problem with, ie the
> underlying assumption regarding the linguistic existence of
> "uncancellable meaning".
>
> I am sorry that I misrepresented you. What I found difficult in writing
> that paragraph was that you failed to give a plain definition of the
> concepts you were running with. I still find it intriguing that others
> who have used these very same linguistic concepts as yourself have
> produced vastly different results, eg Cook an aspectual one and Rogland
> and Goldfajn a tense one.

RF:

The fundamental parameters I used are the 
foundation for all the conclusions of verb 
meaning in all the chapters. And because you 
failed to understand the nature (definition) of 
these parameters, you could not fully understand 
the reasons for the conclusions drawn in each 
chapter as to the meaning of the verb forms. A 
balanced scientific approach for the evaluation 
of a chapter is first to understand the arguments 
of the author and their foundation, and then 
consider the strengths and weaknesses of the 
arguments and conclusions. But because you got 
the fundamentals wrong, you could not and did not 
do this. But your evaluation was based on your 
own views of Hebrew verbs, and, until I get 
evidence for the contrary, you have not worked 
extensively with Hebrew verbs and is not an 
expert in the field.

Here you err  again! Neither Cook nor Rogland or 
Goldfajn used the same linguistic concepts as I. 
These concepts have never been applied to the 
sstudy of Hebrew verbs except in my dissertation. 
One reason why they reached different 
conclusions, as I see it, was that they did *not* 
use the same concepts as I did (see review of 
Rogland by J. Tropper ). But  I would like to say 
that even if Cook's conclusions are different 
from mine, his work has a high scientific quality.


> But note too that your own sweeping statement that "many of [my]
> arguments against [your] conclusions actually hit a straw man" is not
> valid. The bit where I may have misrepresented you is only a very minor
> part of my critique (one or two sentences at most), and all I am doing
> there is presenting an overview. The substantive part of my critique is
> regarding your contention on the existence of "uncancellable meaning"
> and how this is linguistically untenable. Your whole thesis is built
> upon this foundation and so therefore falls with it. You do not deal
> with this central issue, and even in your dissertation this position is
> simply assumed and never defended.

RF:

In my comments above I show that your 
misunderstanding and misrepresentation of my 
parameters is not a minor point. They have a 
domino-effect, and causes all your evaluation to 
be clouded, because you have not understood what 
the arguments are based upon.

I started this thread in order to discuss whether 
there was a semantic difference between YIQTOLs 
and WAYYIQTOLs with past reference, and if so, 
how this difference could be detected. So I will 
not say anything about uncancellable meaning- I 
will discuss uncancellable meaning and the Hebrew 
verb in a separate post.

> >  At the beginning you say, "As will soon be apparent, I disagree with
> >  Furuli at almost every point." This is hardly a good setting for a real
> >  peer review, which should be a balanced, scientific discussion. Your
> >  words suggest that what you have written rather is a one-sided or biased
> >  discussion.
>
> My words suggest that there is a basic floor to your thesis, viz. that
> it has incorrectly assumed the linguistic existence of "uncancellable
> meaning", which has then lead to the results of the thesis which are
> questionable due to the shaky foundation.
>
> Actually, I started out reading your work with an open mind thinking
> that maybe you had put all the pieces of the BH verbal system together.
> But the more I read, the more I saw that your results were directly
> related to the basic premise regarding the existence of "uncancellable
> meaning". It is therefore a real review which argues that this basic
> assumption is linguistically untenable.
>
> >  Moreover, a peer review of a Ph.D dissertation should be
> >  made by a peer, by one who both have a Ph.D and is an expert in the
> >  field. But your lack of understanding of fundamental linguistic concepts
> >  and several other misunderstandings and misrepresentations lead me to
> >  wonder about your qualifications.
>
> >  On "BibleWorks User Forum" your profile  is: "Research assistant,
> >  teaching Biblical Hebrew, Ph.D thesis on BH pronouns". I would like to
> >  ask about  the background you had when you wrote the review: Which
> >  grades in Hebrew and Semitics did you have? Had you at that time
> >  defended your doctoral dissertation? Have you published any articles or
> >  monographs dealing with Hebrew verbs or Semitic linguistics? How long
> >  have you taught Hebrew on the university level?
>
> Now isn't this a bit hoity-toity -- that only one who holds a PhD can
> question the lofty and above-reproach work of a fellow PhD-holder? Come
> on, the critique is as it stands. Either you can defend the basic
> assumption of the thesis regarding the existence of "uncancellable
> meaning" in the face of the evidence I presented against it, or you
> can't. Simple as that.

RF:

The conclusion I must draw is that you are a 
research assistant, you have not completed a 
Ph.D, and you have not published any articles or 
monographs on Hebrew verbs or Semitic 
linguistics. Therefore your review is not a peer 
review. Normally I do not ask for the credentials 
of people, but I look at their writings and 
evaluate their quality. But when the reviewer of 
a dissertation starts his long presentation by 
stating that he personally disagrees with almost 
everything, and thereby evaluate the work in 
relation to his own strong views, I think it is 
good to look for the credentials of the reviewer 
to find out whether  the reviewer is an expert in 
the field.

> >  For the record, there are two other reviews of my dissertation that are
> >  diametrically different from  Kummerow's review: "Hebrew Studies" 48
> >  (2007) 359-62 by professor E. R Hayes, and The Society of Biblical
> >  Literature (http:/www.bookreviews.org/subscribe.asp) by professor John
> >  Kaltner.
> >
> >
> >  Best regards,
> >
> >  Rolf Furuli
> >  University of Oslo
>
> Regards,
> David Kummerow.
> _______________________________________________


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo