Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Trevor & Julie Peterson" <06peterson AT cua.edu>]

Okay, I'm going to betray my ignorance of Modern Hebrew here.  Does anyone
know the Hebrew equivalent(s) of "philology," "philologist," etc.?  It's
mainly just a curiosity.  It struck me the other day that the Semitic
philologist (in English-speaking environments, anyway) goes through life
with a Greek title.  Doesn't see quite right to me.  Anyway, I don't have
any resources handy to look up such a thing, and about the best I could do
for a makeshift translation is:

English:  philology
Translit:  )aH(a)BaTDaaBaaR
Readable:  Ahavatdavar

English:  philologist/philological?
Translit:  )ooHeeBDaaBaaR
Readable:  Ohevdavar

English:  philologists
Translit:  )ooH(a)BeeDaaBaaR
Readable:  Ohavedavar

I'm probably way off here.  It seems like the Qal act. ptc. of )HB would
work for both one who loves and the adjectival sense of loving DBR.  The
derived noun would work for love of DBR itself.  I'm not even sure that I
like DBR as an equivalent of LOGOS, but given the sense of what the complete
term is supposed to mean, I think it works.  Probably not even close to the
real term . . .

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics

As in contemporary discos, so in contemporary descriptions of Canaanite
poetry, much is done under the cover of music that is amusing but not
entirely licit.  --M. O'Connor, 1978