Rolf Furuli
Rolf Furuli | |
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Rolf Johan Furuli (born 19 December 1942) is a professor emeritus[1][2] in Semitic languages at the University of Oslo;[3] 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.[4]
Education
Furuli started his studies of New Babylonian chronology in 1984.[citation needed] 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.[5] From 1999 he held a position as assistant professor at the University of Oslo, and in 2005 he received his D.Arts with a thesis on definite and indefinite verbs in the Hebrew Bible.[5] 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."[6] 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]".[7] Furuli was as a lecturer at the University of Oslo,[8] before retiring in 2011.
Religious views
Furuli has defended the religious views of Jehovah's Witnesses while a member of the denomination,[9][10] 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.[11] 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."[12]
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.[13] Subsequently, he was disfellowshipped from the denomination.[14]
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.[15]
Theses
- Imperfect consecutive and the Verbal system of Biblical Hebrew (thesis, magister artium, University of Oslo). 1995.
- A New Understanding of the Verbal System of Classical Hebrew—An attempt to distinguish between pragmatic and semantic factors. Oslo: Awatu Publishers. Originally presented as the author's thesis (D.Arts) --University of Oslo. 2006. ISBN 82-994633-4-3. OCLC 123503008.
Writings
- 1997 – The Problem of Induction and the Hebrew verb in Elie Wardini (ed.) Built on solid Rock. ISBN 82-7099-283-6
- 1999 – The Role of Theology and Bias in Bible Translation with a Special Look at the New World Translation of Jehovah’s Witnesses. ISBN 0-9659814-4-4
- 2000 – Modern models and the study of dead languages Motskrift NTNU, Trondheim pp. 83–86. (in Norwegian)
- 2001 – The study of new religious movements with a stress on the mental health of Jehovah's Witnesses (with Leon Groenewald and Johan Nerdrum) Tidsskrift for Norsk Psykologforening, 2, pp. 123–128. (in Norwegian)
- 2001 – Gilgamesh and Atrahasis two Babylonian Heroes (with Jens Braarvig and Tor Åge Bringsværd)
- 2002 – Science and Bible translation—"Christianizing" and "mythologizing" of the Hebrew text of the Bible. ISBN 82-994633-1-9 (in Norwegian and Danish)
- 2003 – Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Persian Chronology Compared with the Chronology of the Bible, Volume 1: Persian Chronology and the Length of the Babylonian Exile of the Jews. ISBN 82-994633-3-5[16]
- 2003 – The book of Enoch. ISBN 82-525-5177-7 (translated from Ge'ez to Norwegian)
- 2004 – The Dead Sea Scrolls. ISBN 82-525-5199-8 (translated from Hebrew and Aramaic)
- 2004 – The NWT's translation of the Hebrew verbal system with particular stress on the waw consecutive in Anthony Byatt and Hal Flemings (eds.) 'Your Word is Truth': Essays in Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (1950, 1953), pp. 221-241. ISBN 0-9506212-6-9
- 2005 – The verbal System of Classical Hebrew An Attempt to Distinguish Between Semantic and Pragmatic Factors in L. Ezard and J. Retsø (eds.) Current Issues in the Analysis of Semitic Grammar and Lexicon I, pp. 205–31. ISBN 3-447-05268-6
- 2006 – Sumerian Writings. ISBN 82-525-6213-2 (translated from Sumerian into Norwegian)
- 2007 – The Neo-Babylonian Chronology and the Cuneiform Tablet VAT 4956 in Forschung – Bibel – Artefakte, pp. XIV-XVIII. ISBN 978-3-9811529-2-0
- 2007 – Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Persian Chronology Compared with the Chronology of the Bible, Volume 2: Assyrian, Babylonian and Egyptian Chronology. ISBN 978-82-994633-6-2
- 2008 – Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Persian Chronology Compared with the Chronology of the Bible, Volume 1: Persian Chronology and the Length of the Babylonian Exile of the Jews, revised edition. ISBN 82-994633-5-1
- 2008 – Kebra Nagast. ISBN 978-82-525-6704-5 (translated from Ge´ez into Norwegian)
- 2008 – Baal the King of the Gods in Ugarit. ISBN 978-82-525-6590-4 (translated from Ugaritic, Phoenician, and Hebrew into Norwegian)
- 2009 – How do Jehovah's Witnesses think? A Witness describes the faith in H. K. Ringnes and H. K. Sødal (eds.) Jehovah's Witnesses An interdisciplinary Study. ISBN 978-82-15-01453-1 (in Norwegian)
- 2011 – The Role of Theology and Bias in Bible Translation with a Special Look at the New World Translation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, Second edition, Stavern, Norway: Awatu Publishers. ISBN 978-82-92978-02-3
- 2012 – Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Persian Chronology Compared with the Chronology of the Bible, Volume 1: Persian Chronology and the Length of the Babylonian Exile of the Jews, Second edition. ISBN 978-82-92978-03-0
- 2012 – Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Persian Chronology Compared with the Chronology of the Bible, Volume 2: Assyrian, Babylonian and Egyptian Chronology, Second edition. ISBN 978-82-92978-04-7
- 2017 – When Was the Book of Daniel Written? A Philological, Linguistic, and Historical approach (331 pages)[17]
- 2018 – The Tetragram—Its history, Its use in the new Testament, and its pronunciation, Part One (250 pages). ISBN 978-82-92978-09-2
- 2018 – Foreword in William Kelly (ed.) Are Jehovah's Witnesses False Prophets? A Thorough Investigation with Rebuttal, pp. 8-11. ISBN 978-15-48806-50-7
- 2019 – Can We Trust the Bible? With Focus on the Creation Account, the Worldwide Flood, and the Prophecies (1550 pages).[18]
- 2020 – The Fallacy of Prophetic Perfect – With Translation of Verses From the Prophets (363 pages). ISBN 978-82-92978-10-8
- 2020 – My Beloved Religion – and the Governing Body.[13] ISBN 978-82-92978-12-2
See also
- Atra-Hasis
- Bible chronology
- Book of Enoch
- Dead Sea scrolls
- Egyptian chronology
- Gilgamesh
- Hebrew verb conjugation
- New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
- Waw-consecutive
Sources
- ^ Academia Profile – Oslo University
- ^ Flemings, Hal (2008). Examining Criticisms of the Bible. AuthorHouse (self-published). p. 89. ISBN 978-1-4343-2803-8.
- ^ House, Mark A. (8 November 2016). "Review of Rolf J. Furuli, The Role of Theology and Bias in Bible Translation With a Special Look at the New World Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses". Christian Publishing House. Retrieved 8 January 2020.
- ^ "Rolf Furuli". ResearchGate. Retrieved 8 January 2021.
- ^ a b "rolffu". Universitetsbiblioteket i Oslo. Archived from the original on 30 November 2011.
- ^ Elizabeth R. Hayes (2007). "A New Understanding of the Verbal System of Classical Hebrew: An Attempt to Distinguish between Semantic and Pragmatic Factors (review)". Hebrew Studies. National Association of Professors of Hebrew (NAPH). 48: 359–362. doi:10.1353/hbr.2007.0013. ISSN 2158-1681. S2CID 143302352.
- ^ Bernhard Lang (2009). International Review of Biblical Studies, Volume 54 (2007-2008). International Review of Biblical Studies. BRILL. pp. 300–301. ISBN 9789047426011.
- ^ Chryssides, George D. (2016). Jehovah's Witnesses: Continuity and Change. Routledge New Religions. Routledge. p. 20. ISBN 9781351925426.
- ^ Rolf Furuli (2001). "Rapid Response: Bioethical aspects of the recent changes in the policy of refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses". BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.). 322 (7277): 37–9. doi:10.1136/bmj.322.7277.37. PMC 1119307. PMID 11141155.
As a member of the hospital liaison committee in Oslo, Norway for the last ten years the question about medical ethics and the use of blood is very important for me.
- ^ Osamu Muramoto (2001). "Rapid Response: Bioethical aspects of the recent changes in the policy of refusal of blood by Jehovah's Witnesses". BMJ (Clinical Research Ed.). 322 (7277): 37–9. doi:10.1136/bmj.322.7277.37. PMC 1119307. PMID 11141155.
- ^ Rolf Furuli. Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Persian Chronology Compared with The Chronology of the Bible—Volume I Persian Chronology and the length of the Babylonian Exile of the Jews, Second edition 2012. Rolf Furuli. Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Persian Chronology Compared with The Chronology of the Bible—Volume II Assyrian, Babylonian, and Egyptian Chronology. Second edition 2012.
- ^ "FURULI, ROLF, Persian Chronology and the Length of the Babylonian Exile of the Jews Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian and Persian Chronology Compared with the Chronology of the Bible, 1 (Oslo: R. Furuli A/S [furuli@online.no], 2003), pp. 251. n.p. ISBN 82-994633-3-5". Journal for the Study of the Old Testament. 28 (5): 42–43. 2004.
- ^ a b "My Beloved Religion—and the Governing Body". goodreads.
- ^ "My only option was to publish the book". Vårt Land. 25 June 2020.
I have just been excluded from Jehovah's Witnesses because I have published a book criticizing the Governing Body. However, I see the publication of the book as an emergency. And I'm left with a good conscience.
- ^ Sverre Bøe, "The New World Bible Translation of Jehovah's Witnesses" (in Norwegian) Tidsskrift for Teologi of Kirke. Oslo, Norway, 2011, p. 170. Sverre Bøe is professor of theology at Fjellhaug International University College in Oslo.
- ^ "Books Received". The Journal of the American Oriental Society. 1 October 2003. Retrieved 25 September 2011.
- ^ "When Was the Book of Daniel Written? A Philological, Linguistic, and Historical approach". ResearchGate.
- ^ "Can We Trust the Bible? (e-Pub)". The Gramma publishers.
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