Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Bryan Rocine" <596547 AT ican.net>]

B-Haverim,

Due to the recent increase of traffic on the b-hebrew list(which is good!)
and the recent increase in violation of our mailing list mission(which is
bad!), I am posting below our list's charter.  In addition, folks seem to
be suggesting they are not sure just what this list is for, so...  This
charter will soon be on our b-hebrew web page, but until then, you may
refer to it in our archives from this point on.  You may notice that the
charter has changed a bit in its focus since ownership transferred from
David Marotta to Jonathan Robie approximately six months ago.  The change
in focus is the collective decision of Jonathan and the b-hebrew staff.

Members must realize that this list is indeed a moderated list.  Violators
of the list charter may be put on probation whereby all their posts will be
screened by the staff before posting, and continued violators may be
removed from the list.

Regards,
Bryan Rocine
B-Hebrew chairman


B-HEBREW CHARTER
---------------------------------------
We are an e-mail conference of academic
professionals, teachers, students, clergy and laity, people of any faith,
devoted to a better understanding of the Hebrew Bible.  As such we often
discuss a variety of topics related to the Biblical languages, the history
of the text and its study, the culture of the Ancient Near East, the
literary analysis of the Hebrew Bible, and more.

Although the B-Hebrew forum is willing to entertain a wide range of
discussion topics related to Hebrew and the Hebrew Bible, the staff will
not tolerate personal attack or disrespect.  We are careful to administer
this list responsibly. The first two times you post, your message must be
approved by a member of the B-Hebrew staff.  This allows us to screen out
spam and off-topic posts by people who are not familiar with the list.
However, it also means that there will be a delay before your message is
posted to the list. After the first two posts, your messages are sent
directly to the list.  Please honor the following
guidelines in all your contributions:

1. Debate that forces particular faith or doctrinal perspectives
onto a reading of the text is not appropriate subject matter for this
forum.  
2. Proselytizing ("seeking to convert someone to a certain religious
faith") is also not appropriate.  Naturally, each of us will share our own
understanding from our own perspective, but this should not be done with
the goal of changing other participants.
3. Knowledge of Hebrew is assumed, but belittling someone for their lack of
skill or ridiculing someone for making a mistake--even a basic one--is
unacceptable.
4. All list members should be allowed the dignity of being different.
5. Discuss passionately, but keep control of your own emotions.  Support
your counterpoints with evidence, and remember to focus on people's ideas
and not the people themselves.
6. Consider the possibility of responding directly to a person, rather than
to the entire list, if the content might not be of interest to everyone.
7.  Each of your posts should be signed by name, so members know from whom
they are hearing and to whom they might respond. 

A helpful hint:  Write your response, save it and sleep on it. After the
emotion of the moment has passed, think about whether your posting will be
helpful and appropriate.

TRANSCRIPTION SCHEME
--------------------------------------------
Officially, the B-Hebrew forum transcribes Hebrew in our posts using the
Michigan-Claremont-Westminster scheme(MCW) as shown below.  In practice,
however, the adherence of the list members to the MCW is rather relaxed, so
we also assume that members have Hebrew Bibles handy for reference.  When
an alphabetic sequence is particularly critical to a discussion, members
may want to write out the sequence in words, e.g., "The Hebrew spelling of
_Adam_ is aleph-qamets-dalet-qamets-mem."

Consonants          Vowels
----------                  ------
Aleph    ) or '          Patah         A
Beth     B              Qamets        F
Gimel    G             Segol         E
Daleth   D              Tsere         "
Heh      H               Hireq         I
Waw      W            Holem         O
Zayin    Z               Qamets Chatuf F
Cheth    X              Qibbuts       U
Teth     +               Shureq        W.
Yod      Y              Shewa        :
Kaph     K             Hatef Patah  :A
Lamedh   L            Hatef Segol  :E
Mem      M            Hatef Qamets :F
Nun      N
Samek    S
Pe       P             Miscellaneous
Ayin     ( or `       -------------------------
Tsade    C             Ketiv        *
Qoph     Q             Qere         **
Resh     R             Dagesh       .
Sin      &               Meqqeph       -
Shin     $
Tav      T