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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect

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Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

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  • From: K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
  • To: Dave Washburn <davidlwashburn AT gmail.com>
  • Cc: "b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>, George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect
  • Date: Wed, 29 May 2013 10:18:14 -0700

Dave:

I hope this is the last message on this subject, and let’s get back to Biblical Hebrew.

On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 8:51 AM, Dave Washburn <davidlwashburn AT gmail.com> wrote:
"I don’t know Longacre, nor Rocine’s model, but Buth demonstrated on this forum that he doesn’t know Biblical Hebrew very well, because he doesn’t know Hebrew Bible. He made grammatical and syntactical errors."

You said in so many words "that he doesn't know Biblical Hebrew very well." I don't know how you can now claim you said no such thing, because it's right there.

At least you quote me accurately. My complaint against George is that he didn’t, and thereby twisted what I said. 

I disagree with Buth a LOT. But he does know his field. How many times he's sat down and read it from cover to cover, and how long ago that was, these things are irrelevant. That's not the only way to know the language, and really, it may not even be the best way.

After only two times reading Tanakh through I still thought that I could wrestle with the data and get the Biblical Hebrew verbal conjugational system to fit into the aspectual model I had been taught. Only after about five times I had to admit that the data had won. Beyond a certain point, there’s no substitution to reading the text through over and over again to get the nuances and feel of the language.

Even with modern languages, the only way to become really fluent in another language is to immerse oneself in that language. Academic studies can carry one only so far.

My experience with Randall Buth is that he made factual errors in Biblical Hebrew where just quoting verses would show the error. This is not just a disagreement in opinion.

One that comes to mind was his claim that “today” HYWM never precedes its verb. Yet even a quick electronic search brought up a few times where it does. As an emphatic. In prose. Would he have made that mistake had he read Tanakh 20 times through instead of only twice decades ago? Much less likely. And that was not the only error.

How did I know to look for those examples? I had read those sections so many times that the pattern had imprinted itself on my mind, even though I was not conscious of the fact. Immersion.

My understanding is that Randall Buth has an excellent reputation in the field of semitics—the study of semitic languages, and that his PhD dissertation was a tour-de-force on a cognate language, that he knows Mishnaic and modern Israeli Hebrew very well, but when he made factual errors in Biblical Hebrew that makes me question just how well does he know Biblical Hebrew, only Biblical Hebrew, and the question was how well; not did he know Biblical Hebrew at all, and not did he know Hebrew in general as George was twisting my words to say.

So now can we leave poor Randall alone and get back to Hebrew?

Karl W. Randolph.



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