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The meaning of Genesis 12:3 is much controverted. This study, considering the final form of Genesis, argues that it is in the first place a promise of security and greatness to Abraham and Israel, but that in its context, following Genesis 1-11, it also indicates a divine plan to extend blessing to all the earth's peoples. In receiving God's blessing, Abraham/ Israel act as models and/ or pioneers of blessing for others. God's actions remain free, but also invite appropriate human response. Examination of the near-parallels to Genesis 12:3a in Genesis 27:29b and Numbers 24:9b shows that they are concerned more with the security of the person blessed than with the possibility of others gaining blessing. Detailed discussion of the Hebrew niphal concludes that it normally has either passive or 'middle' force (and is very rarely reflexive). No 'middle' sense found elsewhere for the niphal plausibly fits and hence the niphal in Genesis 12:3 (and 18:18 and 28:14) ispassive: analysis of these passages in their contexts supports this grammatical conclusion. The hithpael in general this study argues to be usually 'middle' in force, though sometimes passive and occasionally reflexive. The hithpael of V"[n2 when used outside Genesis is probably a 'speech action middle', meaning 'utter blessing', and this sense fits Genesis 22:18 and 26:4: this is argued to be compatible with understanding the niphal as a passive. The semantics of are also discussed. 'Blessing' in the Old Testament essentially relates to divine bestowal of prosperity onto humans, though God grants humans in certain circumstances the privilege of invoking his blessing on others. (The sense of also extends to, for example, greeting and to praising God.)

This dissertation studies parts of six medieval Jewish Torah commentaries in order to examine how they related to what we call Pentateuchal poetry. It examines their general approaches to Bible interpretation and their treatments of all Pentateuchal poems. It focusses on qualities we associate with poetry--parallelism, structure, metaphor, and syntax--and explores the extent to which they treated poems differently from prose. / The effort begins by defining Pentateuchal poetry and discussing a range of its presentations by various ancient writers. Subsequent chapters examine its treatment by Rabbi Saadia Gaon of Baghdad (882-942), Abraham Ibn Ezra of Spain (1089-1164), Samuel Ben Meir (1080-1160) and Joseph Bekhor Shor (12th century) of Northern France, David Kimhi of Provence (1160-1235), and Obadiah Sforno of Italy (1470-1550). / While all of these commentators wrote on the poetic passages, none differentiated systematically between Pentateuchal prose and poetry or treated them in substantially different ways. Samuel Ben Meir, Ibn Ezra, Bekhor Shor, and Kimhi did discuss some poetic features of these texts. The other two men were far less inclined to do so, but occasionally recognized some differences between prose and poetry and some phenomena unique to the latter.

This dissertation tests and evaluates four current theories of the verse structure of biblical Hebrew poetry. These theories are: the counting of minimal units, such as poetic feet, stresses or syllables, practiced in various forms since antiquity, and recently employed by D. N. Freedman, F. M. Cross and others, the analysis of poetic line-forms proposed by Terence Collins, the syntactic structural analysis proposed by M. O'Connor, and the semantic analysis practiced by Willow van der Meer, Johannes de Moor and a group of scholars associated with the Kampen School of Theology. All of these theories purport to identify and explain the fundamentals of biblical Hebrew verse structure. Each of these theories is presented comprehensively. These presentations include a review of literature relevant to the field of Hebrew verse structure studies in general, and to these four current theories of verse structure in particular. / These four theories are applied to four poetic passages from the Hebrew Bible: Judges 5:2--31, Isaiah 5:1--7, Lamentations 1 and Psalm 126. These applications show how each of these theories describes the verse structure of each of the poems. Following this, the theories and their applications to these passages are compared to determine which, if any, of these theories are effective in distinguishing poetry from prose, distinguishing one poem from another, predicting the form of a poem, and prescribing rules for the composition of poetry. The strengths and weaknesses of each theory are identified. In addition, the reasons for the failure of these theories to provide an adequate description of the verse structure of biblical Hebrew poetry are indicated.

Theses (Th. M.)--Talbot School of Theology, Biola University, 1989. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Regent College, 1989. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 200-210).

Thesis (S.T.M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [60]-67).

"Thesis in the Jerusalem Franciscan Biblical Institute ... an extract of the ... original Latin." / Bibliography: p. [8]-11.

Thesis (S.T.M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2008. / Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [60]-67).

Thesis (Th. M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 1983. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [51]-54).