To: Dave Washburn <dwashbur AT nyx.net>, Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: Gen. 2:19
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1999 07:31:05 +0200
Dave Washburn wrote:
> George Athas wrote, incorporating his correction:
> > Hi Mark.
> >
> > I just had a few comments on your explanation of the use of waw
> > consecutive in Gen 2:19. Waw Consecutive verbs serve to advance events
> > in a narrative. They are not to be translated as pluperfects. They are
> > the next event in a narrative. You would not normally use a waw
> > consecutive
> > form to say, "X had happened." You would use a waw consecutive to say,
> > "Then X happened."
>
(Dave)
> The key word there is "normally." The problem is, it's a form that is
> also used to open narratives, begin whole books (such as Jonah)
> and provide an explanatory aside as in 2 Sam 19:2 (see my article
> on this passage in TC at
>http://scholar.cc.emory.edu/scripts/TC/vol01/Washburn1996.html
> for details). The view that George has stated is the general "party
> line" view of both traditional grammar and of current discourse
> approaches. However, neither approach has managed to provide a
> unified syntactic explanation of the various uses of the so-called
> imperfect with waw-consecutive, which I tend to abbreviate WP.
> For a different approach, see my article in *Hebrew Studies* 1994
> beginning on p. 27. It is true that the WP is the form of choice for
> simple narrative, but this is because it is a simple declarative
> sentence, not because it carries a value of consecutivity. As such
> it can carry just about any meaning including past and pluperfect.
> Even Waltke and O'Connor, who declared it to be "always
> subordinate," recognized this fact, though they could not explain it
> adequately with their structuralist approach. The upshot is, as has
> already been pointed out, that one's presuppositions about the text
> will most likely determine whether one translates Gen 2:19 as a
> past (consecutive) or as a pluperfect, and either one is possible
> within the range of usage of the WP.
>
> Dave Washburn
Coincidentally I'm just finishing reading an article on Genesis 2 which
cites a paper by Randall Buth on the subject, so I'll look forward to
hearing what Randall has to say (and Bryan). In the meantime, I recall
S. R. Driver's explanation for the waw-consecutive along the lines of
the Greek imperfect - it's consecutive, Driver said, because when you
say such and such began to happen, then it implies there is a sequence
with the next verb.
But since we know the "waw-consecutive" is built off the jussive (which
is more like the Greek aorist than the imperfect), not the imperfect, I
have often wondered why people still insist on the "party line," as
someone else said.
I think Driver was also led astray by the fact that there is a clear way
to express the plu-perfect (i.e. the qatal without waw in an "aside"),
so he assumed that if this device was not used, it was not to be
understood as pluperfect.