I don't think the issue that you are hearing modern rather than biblical Hebrew. Rather, the situation is that in the classroom you have to deal with things in an immediate present setting. This makes for conversations in the present that use predominantly the convention of participles. Most biblical narratives, however, are not conversations in the present and, therefore, use other syntactical arrangements and verb forms. So the issue is not the difference between modern and ancient, but rather the difference between a live class room and an ancient document.
GEORGE ATHAS Director of Postgraduate Studies, Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au) Sydney, Australia _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
