Scott N. Callaham Poradie kníh

This textbook, Biblical Aramaic for Biblical Interpreters, extends learning patterns already established through a student's study of Biblical Hebrew and cuts an efficient path toward the interpretation of Biblical Aramaic Scripture. It employs a fresh approach that significantly facilitates learning Biblical Aramaic vocabulary and grammar. The motivating goal throughout is to enable interpreting biblical passages written in Biblical Aramaic, namely, Genesis 31:47, Jeremiah 10:11, Ezra 4:8-6:18 and 7:12-26, and Daniel 2:4b-7:28. Review of fundamental concepts like the alphabet, Masoretic vowel pointing, prose cantillation marks, and the use of scholarly printed editions of the biblical text is unnecessary, because this knowledge carries over directly from previous biblical language study. Instead, review of Biblical Hebrew grammar is part and parcel of the comparative method of this book. Whenever this book places Biblical Hebrew and Biblical Aramaic words and concepts side-by-side for comparison, the arrangement is generally Biblical Hebrew on the left (review material) and Biblical Aramaic on the right (new information).

Alongside several related ancient languages, Biblical Hebrew possesses two infinitive forms. The rarer of the two is the infinitive absolute, for which no analogous structure exists in modern translation receptor languages such as English. In studying its use, Hebrew grammarians have long noted that the infinitive absolute often appears in modal contexts. However, until the present study this phenomenon has not received further scholarly attention. Employing contemporary cross-linguistic research on modality, Callaham’s study presents a new and comprehensive analysis of the function of the infi nitive absolute in Biblical Hebrew. Collected data strongly imply that the combination of an infinitive absolute and a cognate verb is a construction expressing verb focus, which includes focus on any modality present in the cognate verb. Infinitives absolute can also function as full substitutes for finite verbs. Accordingly, these independent uses are also highly modal. Through wide-ranging interaction with previous research and exhaustive examination of textual data, this study advances new findings on the interplay of modality and infinitive absolute employment in the Hebrew Bible.