Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

George:

This is not the only example of this use of the conjugations, the most
notorious similar example is found in Genesis 2:9, 19, both verses
referring to events that happened prior to the creation of man, yet listed
later.

Karl W. Randolph.

On Sat, Mar 31, 2012 at 3:10 AM, George Athas 
<George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>wrote:

> This seems like an attempt to harmonize the sources, and then reading the
> verbal conjugations in such a way that allows for this harmonization.
>
>
> GEORGE ATHAS
> Director of Postgraduate Studies
> Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
>
>
> On 31/03/2012, at 12:11 PM, "K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com<mailto:
> kwrandolph AT gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> I will answer a linguistic question here.
>
> Because the Hebrew verbs do not conjugate for tense, that sometimes can
> lead to misunderstanding. One of those is that sometimes when the writer
> assumes that the audience understands that a certain event happened before
> another, the writer then writes a rather abbreviated account that needs
> context from other sources in order to understand the order of events,
> especially when an earlier event is listed after a latter one. An English
> writer (German also) would be able to indicate through tense the order of
> events.
>
> Here Haggai 2:18 is not clear as to the order of events, other sources
> indicate that the foundation was laid well before the time of Haggai. The
> context around Haggai 2:18 also seems to indicate that a certain amount of
> time had passed since the foundation was laid. So linguistically, there is
> no problem in recognizing that Haggai referred to the same event as Ezra.
> It’s just that the Hebrew linguistic practice does not conform to English
> practice.
>
> Karl W. Randolph.
>
> On Fri, Mar 30, 2012 at 6:43 AM, George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au
> <mailto:George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>> wrote:
> You didn't break the rules at all, Peter. You asked a good question about
> Hebrew. Unfortunately, the answer to your question is not an issue with
> Hebrew per se, but rather with historiography. And since that is beyond the
> scope of the forum, we can't really explore it here (fascinating though it
> would be).
>
> Cheers!
>
>
> GEORGE ATHAS
> Director of Postgraduate Studies,
> Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au<http://moore.edu.au>)
> Sydney, Australia
>
>
>