Language:
English
Year of publication:
2019
Titel der Quelle:
Journal for the Study of the Old Testament
Angaben zur Quelle:
43,3 (2019) 453-478
Keywords:
Bible Language, style
;
Hebrew language, Biblical Verb
;
Hebrew language, Biblical Passive voice
;
Hebrew language, Biblical Reflexives
;
Hebrew language, Biblical Semantics
Abstract:
The central thesis of this article is that improved knowledge of the Niphal can offer us arguments in favour of (or against) certain meanings of verbs in biblical texts. Proceeding from general linguistic studies of middle voice to Biblical Hebrew linguistics, the differences between the active, reflexive, middle and passive voices are clarified. Subsequently, it is shown that the Niphal expresses neither the reflexive nor passive voice, but predominantly marks the middle voice. The Niphal describes an event in which the subject is concerned with itself, though not reflexively as a differentiated object, but as an undifferentiated middle, while reference to an external Agent is absent. These insights are applied to various texts and verbs in the Hebrew Bible, namely, 3 Niphals of the verb גמל ("wean"), 7 Niphals (feminine singular) of the verb טמא ("defile"), and 16 usages of אסף Niphal in contexts of dying
Abstract:
This article responds to the innovative and stimulating research by Ellen van Wolde in a previous volume of Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. She claims that the Niphal is middle voice and can be passive, ‘if (and only if) an external argument, coded as an external Agent, is present’. My research however, demonstrates that such a description of the passive is both inadequate in view of the world’s languages and incongruent with Niphal. In addition, my response lays bare how such a prescription of the middle voice to the Niphal in the Hebrew Bible is circulus probando and unconvincing.
Description / Table of Contents:
Jones, Ethan C. Hearing the "voice" of the niphal; a response to Ellen van Wolde. Ibid. 45,3 (2021) 291-308.
DOI:
10.1177/0309089217743160
URL:
Locate this publication in Israeli libraries
