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The two comprehensive reference grammars for Biblical Hebrew, Gesenius/Kautzsch and Jouon/Muraoka, in addition to the more or less generally accepted categories of use of the definite article, make use of a category which they describe as not having to do with definiteness in the sense that we know it. In this category they group the instances of use of the article that do not seem to fit into the generally accepted categories, instances where the Hebrew definite article, in German and English respectively, is said to be expressed by an indefinite article. In the present article, I analyse the 67 examples given to substantiate the existence of the proposed category. I argue that this category probably does not exist and I contend that most of the examples, when carefully analysed, are examples of regular article usage. When the nouns in question are perceived as nondetermined and translated as such, it is because we are not sufficiently familiar with ancient Hebrew language and culture and hence do not po...

he question of the existence of a Hebrew concept of per­ suasion arises as a subordinate pofrit in James BCinneavy's book, The Greek Rhetorical Origins of Christian Faith. Kmneavy's thesis is that the Christian notion of TTIO-TIC, faith as dis­ tinct from the Hebrew concept of faithfulness or trust, 'emunâ, owes its origin to the Greek concept of TTIO-TIC, beUef as persuasion or proof. In the process of proving this thesis, Kinneavy cites G. Berfram's Hebrew supplement to Rudolf Bultmann's essay on -rreidu} in the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Berfram comments that bibUcal Hebrew has no word corresponding to TTeidu), "to persuade" (Bultmann 1). From this, and from the con­ cordance to the Septuagint which indeed shows that no Hebrew verb was franslated with Greek ireido) in its active fransitive form, Kirmeavy draws the conclusion that this apparent lack is conceptual—that what is lacking is "an awareness of a reflective and analytical concept of persuasion as such" (54). In my opinion, this conclusion, whUe not in itself incorrect, is unwarranted by the evidence Kinneavy attests, which instead points to a more specifie difference between disparate concepts of persuasion, whether pragmatic and impUdt, as in the Hebrew fradition, or reflective and analytical, as in the Greek.