To: "Rodney K. Duke" <dukerk AT appstate.edu>, Hebrew List <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Subject: Re: More on wayyiqtol-resent
Date: Thu, 15 Apr 1999 09:53:33 -0400
Dear Rodney,
Thanks for your post. As you can see from my post on Job 1, I have been busy
elsewhere.
I have just one comment. In regard to the following quote from your post:
> Perhaps the best way to
> capture this in English would be with the present tense (i.e. the
> historic present): "They go to him and they stand before him and they
> say..."
This concept of story / narrative time was proposed over thirty years ago, in
a book
on the Hebrew Verb system, a book that no one paid any attention to. I read
it in
1988, while sitting in the basement of the Ora B. Allison library in Memphis,
TN, but
I cannot remember the name of the book or the author. I have been suggesting
this
possibility to my Hebrew students ever since that time. As you know, the
Greek
historical present has some similarities in usage.
--
Lee R. Martin
Pastor, Prospect Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee
Instructor in Hebrew and Old Testament
Church of God Theological Seminary http://earth.vol.com/~lmartin/