Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Christine,

You write:

>Regarding the word "abomination"  in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 (I am
>using the JPS 1917 edition of the Tanach), what is the general consensus of
>this word as an accurate translation?

My opinion is that it is an accurate translation. That is the lexical
meaning. Some lexicons might use another synonym.

>What about the comments below on these passages, are they reasonable?

" one should also note that there are two words that share consonants but
>differing vowels in Hebrew: zaken, male, and zakan, rememberance...

They do share the same consonants, but the consonants are Z, K, and R (not N).

> what if,
>hypothetically, the vowels had been misapplied to zayin-kopf-nun sofeet?

I am not sure to what "sofeet" refers.

>While I accept the consosnants are as they were given on Sinai, we know the
>Masssoretes had to canonize the vowelization in the 8th and 9th centuries of
>the common era...

The author seems to be trying to suggest that the consonants ZKR do not
refer to a male in these texts. The Massoretes added the vowel pointing
later, but the reading tradition apparently goes back to a time as early as
the first century. That tradition governed how they pointed the consonants.

>Let me continue with what's strange with this passage...
>
>Toevah...abominable, right? Well, maybe. Toevah is spelled Tav, vav, ayin,
>bet, hey. According to Gesenius Brown Driver's Lexicon, the shoresh, root,
>Ayin-Bet-Hey means "fat, gross, thick or stupid"...which may be abominable
>traits but hardly worthy of the death penalty, eh? "

Yes, (BH means "be thick, fat, gross." But the noun toevah does not come
from that root. It comes from the root T(B.

                                Yours,
                                Harold Holmyard
                                Dallas, TX