Biblical Hebrew Forum

[yochanan bitan <ButhFam AT compuserve.com>]

de caen wrote:
>some of my students struggle terribly, having been exposed to modern
hebrew. 
>the syntax and verbal 
>semantics are quite a bit different, some vocabulary is subtly different 
[end de caen]

their struggle is nowhere near the struggle of those students who don't
know modern hebrew who try to digest long stretches of biblical text or
qumran in a single bite. 
students may certainly struggle with new concepts and ideas, though modern
hebrew doesn't cause that, it just comes with being a student or teacher.
maybe the problem word is 'exposure'. leading students who can read a
modern newspaper through biblical texts is truly a joy, for student and
teacher. let's party.

[de caen, again:]
>biblical scholars having to do some time in a
>linguistics department sounded good [end de caen]

yes, for learning analytical tools and the nuts and bolts about how human
languages work. (been there, done that, it was delicious)

but that is quite different from using a language, appreciating a
literature or learning a language.
with linguistics a person can be "ever-learning and never coming to a
knowledge". 
imagine if one approached any dialect of english through the medium of
linguistics articles in german or arabic about english? 

there is something fundamental going on here. 

i would say that anyone in the image of God can learn a language and learn
to appreciate a literary work at whatever level suits them and gives them
enjoyment. (never forget Onkelos Gen 2:7 uvera ha-shem elohim yat adam,
`afra min ar`a, unefaH be'apohi nishmata deHayyey. vahavat beadam leruaH
memallela)(of course, some severely incapacitated may remain at
disfunctional levels)

however, not everyone will be able to learn to analyze how they communicate
or the details of syntactic or literary structures. students who
imperfectly learn to recognize 'a passive' in high school in their
mother-tongue will likely struggle with talking about any language. should
they be flunked-out of learning another language? on more than one occasion
i have seen students who were 'cut' from a class go on to successfully
learn a language, on rare occasions even attaining expert levels.

let the scholars learn linguistics, and let anyone who will learn hebrew. 
yirbu kemohem!

braxot
randall