Narrative Syntax and the Hebrew Bible (Papers of the Tilburg Conference 1996)

For centuries the Hebrew Bible had been the province of Jewish scholars. Christian interpreters focused instead on the Latin. But with the advent of the Reformation came a resurgence of interest in the original languages of Scripture. Christian scholars brought to the task a certain understanding of grammar not shared by earlier Jewish interpreters, whose interest in Hebrew waned as concern with the living tradition of rabbinic Judaism waxed. Largely European preoccupation with the form of words, their history, and their relationship to other words prevailed for centuries, and the narrative itself, the syntax of language, languished. Questions of how words and sentences communicate were not asked. New interest in linguistics, the explosion of translations of the Scriptures, and growing discontent with historical-critical methods led scholarship to rethink many of its approaches, including its approach to the study of language.

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