Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>]

Again, this sounds like harmonising two distinct accounts, and then reading 
the verbal conjugations to suit this interpretation. I don't buy it.


GEORGE ATHAS
Director of Postgraduate Studies,
Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au)
Sydney, Australia


From: K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com<mailto:kwrandolph AT gmail.com>>
Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2012 19:24:36 -0700
To: George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au<mailto:George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>>
Cc: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org<mailto:b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>>
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Haggai 2,8 + Ezra 3,10

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<mailto: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><mailto: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><mailto: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><http://moore.edu.au>)
Sydney, Australia