HTCG 03e

Chapter 3: Time and Space

Section B: The Israelite Conception of Time

Part 2: Psychic Time

Subpart c: The Time of History

Boman takes a couple of pages to warn us that the western notion of time is quite confused. The concept of spatial imagery is misleading. Two points on a line coexist; two successive moments of time do not. You cannot be anywhen; you can be only now. The western imagery is internally inconsistent.

The Hebraic conception is quite consistent, if only for it’s near absence. There simply could not be a Hebrew philosophical discussion about time. It’s a prison and there’s no escape, so why pretend we can transcend it and think about it from outside? Memories of past events are what they are. Even the past is not an objective reality, but in the whole, it is God’s personal memory of events. The past is whatever He says it was.

Subpart d: The Tenses

Boman reminds us of his thesis: The language of a people, as developed and used, represents their epistemology solidified as the ground on which they live. Language declares cultural assumptions about life.

Thus, we have a paradox: The Greeks had all manner of verb tenses and fine gradations about when, how long, etc., and yet mushed things up by clothing it all in spatial terminology. In Hebrew, verb tenses are virtually absent, and yet they had a very consistent view of time. The language cared only whether an action was accomplished already, or not finished yet. Did it already happen, or is it happening now (live and ongoing)? It gives new meaning to the old product advertising line: “Is it live or is it Memorex?”

Granted, Hebrew viewed emerging actions as current. However, Boman is at pains to note once more that the whole issue of verb tense in Hebrew is solidly relative to the speaker, not any imagined objective reality. Everything is personal.

Subpart e: The Psychology of the Tenses

Here Boman repeats some of the mental imaging people use in West versus Hebrew. Westerners think of themselves on some continuum established already, whereas the Hebrew thinks of everything in relation to his life’s rhythms. It’s all relative for the latter. Thus, the two verb tenses are complete (AKA, perfect) and incomplete (imperfect).

Notice how this looks when it comes to viewing something from yesterday. To a Greek mind it is “past/passed” behind you and you are moving forward. It’s a matter of objective reality. To a Hebrew mind it is finished business, no longer a matter of personal concern. Boman invests plenty of effort in trying to make this more plain. Hebrew language has a few words roughly equivalent to “now” (the present).

• pa`am — step, pace, time: The image is someone in the lead starting the group movement by taking the first step for everyone else to copy, as on some journey.
• zeh — this, here, there, now: A hand points to something immediate, or motions mimicking the action desired.
• koh — thus: Again, equivalent to a demonstrative adverb in western languages, very similar to the preceding. All of them mark a vigorous action that should be taken simultaneously with the signal.
• `attah derived from `eth — time in the sense of the current situation. “Now that this thing is done…”

That the Indo-European languages also developed the added dimension of perfect and imperfect to each of the trio past-present-future is probably the only reason we can begin to understand at all how the Hebrews never went beyond the simple matter of verbs that express solely the experience of the person speaking the language at the moment.