Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

George:

No, he’s clear now that it is not his own agenda, and that he doesn’t even
like it.

The only reason I jumped on him (not intended to be on him personally) was
that he introduced this terminology to the discussion, a terminology that is
apparently only very narrowly understood, and is quite frankly misleading
because it is wrong use of English. It may be widely used in his circles,
but not apparently outside of them.

I’ll have to admit, even after learning about T-A-M, were I to read a paper
by someone using T-A-M, my first reaction will be that that author doesn’t
know what he is talking about. That’s why I asked why the terminology hadn’t
been updated to correct English use?

This is especially true with Hebrew where there is historical record that
people used to believe that the different declensions had time related
meanings, just like in Indo-European languages. Among the “first year lies”
I was taught was that Biblical Hebrew declensions referred to time—tense
and/or aspect. Therefore, were I to read something by an author talking
about tense or aspect as pertains to Biblical Hebrew verbs, I would have
real difficulties accepting that he knew more than very basic knowledge of
Biblical Hebrew language, and that not accurate.

One of the other members suggested “declension” as the proper term because
it deals with morphology without dealing with the function of the
morphology. I think he’s right. At least it’s a much better suggestion than
what I had.

Karl W. Randolph.

On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 5:20 PM, George Athas 
<George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>wrote:

> Karl, there is no need to target Randall as though he is pushing a
> particular nomenclature. He's just trying to point out the way the
> nomenclature is being used by a wide variety of people. You may be mistaking
> this for his own agenda. It isn't.
>
>
> GEORGE ATHAS
> Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
> www.moore.edu.au
>
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