Rolf Furuli Explained

Rolf Furuli
Occupation:University teacher, translator, writer
Birth Name:Rolf Johan Furuli
Birth Date:19 December 1942
Spouse:Anne-Sissel ( 2023)
Workplaces:University of Oslo, The Norwegian Institute of Paleography and Historical Philology
Thesis Title:A New Understanding of the Verbal System of Classical Hebrew—An Attempt to Distinguish Between Pragmatic and Semantic Factors
Thesis Year:2005
Birth Place:Oslo, Norway
Discipline:Linguism
Sub Discipline:Semitic languages
Titles:Emeritus
Main Interests:Vav-consecutive, Modern Hebrew verbs, Bible translations, New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, Tetragrammaton
Signature:File:Rolf Furuli – signature.jpg

Rolf Johan Furuli (born 19 December 1942) is a Norwegian linguist who was a lecturer in Semitic languages at the University of Oslo; he retired in 2011. Furuli has taught courses of Akkadian, Aramaic, Ethiopic, Hebrew, Phoenician, Syriac, and Ugaritic at the University of Oslo and at The Norwegian Institute of Paleography and Historical Philology.

Life

Education

Furuli started his studies of New Babylonian chronology in 1984. In 1995 he graduated from the University of Oslo with a Master of Arts degree, with a thesis on the system of verbs in classical Hebrew. In 2005 he received his Doctor of Arts with a thesis on definite and indefinite verbs in the Hebrew Bible. In 2005, Furuli defended his doctoral thesis suggesting a new understanding of verbal system of Classical Hebrew.

In a review of the thesis, professor Elisabeth R. Hayes of Wolfson College, Oxford, wrote: "While not all will agree with Furuli's conclusions regarding the status of the wayyiqtol as an imperfective form, his well-argued thesis contributes towards advancing methodology in Hebrew scholarship." Old Testament lecturer David Kummerow stated that Furuli's research "has gone astray in that his methodology has assumed too much", adding that "the value of Furuli's research is not to be found in his 'new understanding' but rather in the helpful extended cataloguing of non-prototypical and construction-dependent functions of the verbal conjugations of [biblical Hebrew]". Professor John A. Kaltner said:

Teaching

From 1999 Furuli held a position as assistant professor at the University of Oslo, before retiring in 2011.

Religious affiliation

Furuli was a Jehovah's Witness and served as an elder for 56 years, also holding positions as a circuit overseer and a district overseer. In 2020, Furuli published a book entitled My Beloved Religion—and the Governing Body in which he maintains that the denomination's core doctrines and interpretations of biblical chronology are correct, but challenges the authority of the Jehovah's Witnesses' leadership. Subsequently, on June 17, 2020 he was disfellowshipped from the denomination.

Religious views

Furuli has defended the religious views of Jehovah's Witnesses, including their view that Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians in 607 BC rather than the broadly recognised dating of its destruction in 587 BC. In response, in a 2004 issue of Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, Lester L. Grabbe, professor of Hebrew Bible and Early Judaism at the University of Hull, said of Furuli's study: "Once again we have an amateur who wants to rewrite scholarship. ... F. shows little evidence of having put his theories to the test with specialists in Mesopotamian astronomy and Persian history."

Works

Furuli has written works about Bible translation and biblical issues. He has translated a number of documents from Semitic languages and Sumerian into Norwegian.

Theses

Books

Articles

Translations

See also

Sources

Notes and References

  1. News: 1 October 2003 . Books Received . 25 September 2011 . The Journal of the American Oriental Society.

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