Rolf Furuli has worked with the biblical text for four decades. Since his first Greek lecture 24 years ago, his interest in translational questions, particularly in the finer nuances of the verbal systems of the biblical languages, has mushroomed, culminating in the publication of this book.

Rolf Furuli has earned his B.A. and mag.art (a degree between M.A. and Ph.D) from the University of Oslo, with an emphasis on Hebrew; he has also studied Accadian, Arabic, Aramaic, Ethiopic, Greek, Latin, Middle Egyptian, Syriac and Ugaritic, and has done postgraduate studies in applied linguistics and semantics. At present he is a lecturer in Semitic languages at the University of Oslo, and is also working on a project where the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls and ancient inscriptions are studied with the goal of redefining the verbal system of classical Hebrew.