Subject: [b-hebrew] Exodus 6:3 - was I not known to them.
Date: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 21:12:39 -0500
Hi b-hebrew,
Since we had some interesting discussions of verses that may be questions,
I will bring up another, very well known verse, where this issue arises.
Exodus 6:3
And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac,
and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty,
but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.
Similar to before, my main interest here is grammatical, not translation
by doctrine,
or the theories of textual consistency, and especially not JEPD theories :-)
Some translations add a question mark.
And the KJB translation above appears to be essentially a grammatical
question - "was I not".
And perhaps the lack of a question mark means the interrogatory nature is a
little less forceful,
more like a rhetorical question.
Does the Hebrew grammar have grammatical construction or hints that
the verse is interrogatory as opposed to the declarative
"I was not known to them"
- or is the translation decision simply contextual ?
Surprisingly, I checked back a bit, and haven't seen this asked on the
forum.