Participants in Old Testament Texts and the Translator: Reference Devices and their Rhetorical Impact

Octavo. (8), 119, (3)pp. Indices. Blue boards lettered in white. A fine, as new copy. Note: publisher's imprint on spine reads, "Brill." In Biblical Hebrew texts, individuals and groups are referred to according to specific rules and conventions. How are participants introduced into a text and traced further? When is this done by means of proper names, when by nouns, and when by pronominal elements? In this book, examples from many Biblical passages illustrate the patterns involved. These rules help to solve problems of participant reference in controversial passages. But it is not enough to know who are the participants; one needs to establish why they are referred to the way they are. Main characters in a text are referred to differently from others. Certain devices of participant reference help to indicate paragraph boundaries. Unusual references to participants aim to be noticed and have rhetorical impact. Proper names may occur where one would have expected a pronominal element (or vice versa). Participants may be mentioned in an unexpected order. Special attention is given to such unusual reference devices and the rhetorical strategies involved: climax, suspense and implicit comment. In a translation, these strategies should still be as clear as they are in the source text. So how have reference devices been handled in ancient and modern translations? (Publisher) Contents: Intro; Participants in Old Testament Texts and the Translator: Reference Devices and their Rhetorical Impact; CONTENTS; PREFACE; 1. INTRODUCTION; 1.1 The designation of participants: some cross-linguistic observations; 1.2 Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic; 1.2.1 Variation in participant reference; 1.2.2 Thematic structuring; 1.3 A note on participant introduction as a translation problem; 2. USUAL PATTERNS; 2.1 Paragraphs and distinct actions; 2.1.1 Distinct actions and the redirection of direct speech; 2.1.2 Strophes and change of person in poetry; 2.2 Major and minor participants; 2.2.1 Major and minor participants in dialogue; 2.2.2 The introduction of participants and their names; 2.2.3 The order of more participants in one constituent; 2.2.3.1 Participants in one constituent with a resumptive pronoun; 2.2.4 Global or local reference-tracking; 2.2.4.1 Controversial passages; 3. SPECIAL PATTERNS; 3.1 Overspecification; 3.1.1 Independent pronouns; 3.1.2 Repetition; 3.1.2.1 Repetition of extended descriptions; 3.1.2.2 Repetition as a translation problem; 3.2 Initial underspecification: full identification of major participants delayed; 3.2.1 Delayed identification in poetry; 3.3 Rhetorically significant order in one constituent; 3.3.1 Participant order as a translation problem; 3.4 Change of number ('numeruswechsel') in Deuteronomy; 3.5 Pronominal or inflectional references to a quoted participant; 3.5.1 Moses referring to God in Deuteronomy; 3.5.2 Prophets referring to God in a prophetic context; 3.6 One participant, different names: seams in the text?; 4. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS; 4.1 Usual patterns; 4.2 Special patterns; 4.3 The translator; ABBREVIATIONS; REFERENCES; INDEXES; Index of Biblical references; Index of named participants Index of Bible translations; Index of authors; Published in the series STUDIO SEMITIC NEERLANDICA (OCCULT) Volume 39 of the Brill series, "Studio Semitic Neerlandica.".…