Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk"<peter_kirk AT sil.org>]

Actually I think Liz has tried to read something more than intended 
into Ian's debating point. It's an old trick. You say (logically 
correctly) "If <something unlikely> then <the point I am trying to 
prove>", say it loudly enough and with enough repetition and imply 
that your point is proved, and hope that people don't notice that your 
argument is all based in an unproven and probably untrue axiom.

Anyway, if early Hebrew is indistinguishable from early "Phoenician", 
it becomes a meaningless question whether Moses received the Torah (if 
he did) in Hebrew or "Phoenician".

Peter Kirk

PS I assume that this aspect of this thread is OK for continuing 
discussion. I have restrained myself from commenting on-list to the 
rest of it.


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re: Accuracy of the Biblical text??
Author:  <mc2499 AT mclink.it> at Internet 
Date:    24/02/2000 16:36


At 10.06 24/02/00 -0500, Liz Fried wrote:

I wrote:
>> The basic assumption is unproven. If Hebrew as a West Semitic language
>> emerged say not much earlier than the first confirmed epigraphic evidence, 
>> then it is improbable that a Moses got the law in Hebrew. If the evidence 
>> points that way, can you conclude otherwise?

Liz responded:
>What does this mean?
>Why would a language only emerge  "not much earlier" 
>than its epigraphic evidence?
>Do you mean we wouldn't have evidence for it's emergence much earlier?

My reading of the Garbini work on Semitic languages is that he argues that 
when we actually get Hebrew texts, the Lachish letters, Hebrew is shown to 
be a development of a language very similar to Phoenician -- if Phoenician 
wasn't the source. He thinks that the "Gezer calendar" is an example of the 
most southerly Phoenician dialect found yet. Others argue that the Gezer 
artifact is indeed Hebrew. Let's assume Garbini is wrong. He is unable to 
discern that the Gezer thingy is in Hebrew because of a number of factors 
-- well, others can. Garbini's therefore wrong, but shows that the 
difference between Phoenician and Hebrew is so minimal. He goes on to 
describe Hebrew fundamentally as Phoenician with Aramaic infusions. Where's 
the few hundred years of Egyptian influence? It isn't there. What we have 
is a language that developed in Canaan, if not from Phoenician, from 
something very close. If he can't see much difference at all between 
Phoenician and Hebrew then the time of separation between the two is 
probably not long.

This is mainly my crapping on, working from the indications in Garbini's 
analysis. It would be interesting to here what NPL has to say on the 
matter, given the fact that he has been known to teach Ugaritic up their in 
the cold north.


Cheers,


Ian



>or do you mean it actually didn't emerge much earlier? 
>and if the latter, how would we know that?


---
You are currently subscribed to b-hebrew as: Peter_Kirk AT sil.org
To unsubscribe, forward this message to 
leave-b-hebrew-14207U AT franklin.oit.unc.e
du
To subscribe, send an email to join-b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu.