Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

At 14.35 22/06/00 +0100, Peter Kirk wrote:
>Thank you, Ian, for your clarification. You understand "cognate" in a
>different way from me, as excluding loan words. The problem with your
>definition is that there is usually no way to distinguish ancient loans
>between closely related languages from native words. One clue would be
>unusual sound correspondences, as we may have between Ugaritic `rb and
>Arabic ghrb, if that is derived as it might well be from the Ugaritic idiom
>`rbt $p$ "sunset" > Hebrew etc `ereb "evening" (with "sun" implied) > Arabic
>gharb "west". But I doubt if we can know for certain with such a word.

This is why I urged caution with the use of the term "cognate" here.

>Suppose we take the phrase `rbt $p$ on the tablet to mean "the sun set". How
>would you understand the relation between this phrase and the previous
>phrases? Is it one of sequence, "the day was ashamed, then the sun set"? Is
>it one of explanation, "the day was ashamed, i.e. the sun set", or "the day
>was ashamed, because the sun set"? Or is it a temporal one, "the day was
>ashamed, when the sun set"? As there is no conjunction, and assuming that
>they are not totally independent phrases, there must be some such
>connection. Some translators have inferred the temporal connection as the
>most likely one. I think that is a reasonable, if debatable, choice.

Nearly all translations have two separate clauses, ie functionally two
sentences. Paolo Xella for example translated `rbt $p$ as "tramonto'" -- a
verb in the definite past to describe what the sun does when it hits the
horizon. Do you know of any translation from a single recognized scholar in
the field who translates the words as a temporal phrase?

>I don't want to go into questions of chronology again now!

Good show.


Ian