Re: USAGE: Initial "and" (was Re: The Babel Text)
| From: | Steg Belsky <draqonfayir@...> |
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| Date: | Sunday, February 15, 2004, 5:35 |
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On Saturday, February 14, 2004, at 10:51 PM, Roger Mills wrote:
> In KJV at least, it seems to be a literal translation of the Hebrew
> (and
> perhaps the Greek)-- Steg I believe gave us the Hebrew line about
> Shinar the
> other day, and it began with v(+vowel)-. Sentence-initial 'and's are
> EVERYWHERE in the Bible, both OT and NT. I've always assumed (perhaps
> was
> once told by a teacher who knew) that it was a feature of Hebrew
> narrative writing.
I didn't give the Hebrew about Shin`ar, but i can tell you about the
"and". It's part of the Biblical Hebrew verb form known as
|vayyiqtol|, formed by |va-| ("and") plus the jussive imperfect
(|yiqtol|) form of the verb, with the initial consonant of the verb
geminated when possible.
When you have a series of verbs in this form, it's a narrative style
used to describe actions in sequence, in the past.
In this case, we have:
(verse 1) and [the land] was...
(verse 2) and [as] they traveled... and they found... and they
settled...
(verse 3) and they said...
etc.
-Stephen (Steg)
"/spik ap di laNgwidZ av di hibruman/..."
~ 'hibruman' by ehud banai