The Verbal System of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in Qumran Hebrew Texts

by Ken M. Penner

Overview

In The Verbal System of the Dead Sea Scrolls Ken M. Penner determines whether Qumran Hebrew finite verbs are primarily temporal, aspectual, or modal.
Standard grammars claim Hebrew was aspect-prominent in the Bible, and tense-prominent in the Mishnah. But the semantic value of the verb forms in the intervening period in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were written has remained controversial.
Penner answers the question of Qumran Hebrew verb form semantics using an empirical method: a database calculating the correlation between each form and each function, establishing that the ancient author’s selection of verb form is determined not by aspect, but by tense or modality. Penner then applies these findings to controversial interpretations of three Qumran texts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789004298439
Publisher:	Brill Academic Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	08/07/2015
Series:	Studia Semitica Neerlandica , #64
Pages:	228
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Ken M. Penner, Ph.D. (2006, McMaster University), is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at St. Francis Xavier University. He is also writing a commentary on Greek Isaiah for Brill’s Septuagint Commentary Series.