Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ian Hutchesson" <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

>I have been trying to follow the reasons behind your argument. Can you
>please explain what is your point and how it pertains to b-hebrew??

The OT/HB is an undatable collection of traditions. The earliest copies we
have of most of them are from Qumran, which could mean in some cases
traditions which seem to refer back 1500 years from the turn of the era.
(One can see the ongoing life of a tradition if one compares different
versions of 1QS.) To understand a text we are attempting to analyse we have
to be able to contextualise it. It's fine and well to do literal
translations of a language for which there are still very many unknowns in
our knowledge, but what relationship have such translations to the
communications of the various writers and redactors?

I think one has to deal with when texts were written otherwise one may never
do more than scratch their surface.


Ian