Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

To All:

My 2¢ on the discussion.

I have been lurking on the sidelines and these verses show a very good
reason. It shows why I generally read for meaning, not grammatical
parsing.

Take Genesis 41:1 for example, the two verbs XLM and (MD: from the
tone of the discussion I take it that the Masoretes pointed them as
participles, but were they participles? It’s demonstrable that
sometimes the Masoretic pointing is wrong as far as meaning, not
counting how close they may have been to the original pronunciations,
therefore we cannot rule out that they were wrong in this case as
well. With that in mind, looking at the unpointed text, it is possible
that those verbs could have been either participles or Qatal verbs,
and if Qatal verbs they could have been either Qal or Piel.

But when reading for meaning, it doesn’t make much difference what
forms are used to interpret the verbs, in whatever form, those verbs
refer to a past event that is long ago finished; as can be told from
the context. It was a finished, past event even at the time it was
originally written, as the duration of the total event (dreams,
calling for interpretations, Joseph’s appointment) all took place
within 24 hours, so that even if Joseph were the original author, the
event was written after it was finished.

This, and other discussions like this, only strengthen the questions I
have whether or not the Biblical Hebrew grammaticalizations referred
to a time element at all. Tense as a time element has been pretty much
ruled out. But aspect as a time reference can also be questioned.

Now I go back to lurking on this question.

Karl W. Randolph.