Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - RE: "by lot"

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Lisbeth S. Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>
  • To: "Biblical Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: RE: "by lot"
  • Date: Sun, 9 Dec 2001 12:58:38 -0500


I thought Hanukkah started tonight.
It's sounding a lot like Purim over here.
Liz

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charles David Isbell [mailto:cisbell AT home.com]
> Sent: Sun, December 09, 2001 10:50 AM
> To: Biblical Hebrew
> Subject: Re: "by lot"
>
>
> Now we have two theories. Dave's idea that the original question
> concerned
> "the practice of "casting lots" is of course only a guess.
> Soren's idea of
> "throwing Abe's nephew about to determine the will of God" is far more
> suggestive, it seems to me. But I have a third theory, which I
> have already
> shared privately with Thomas.
> My guess is that the original Hebrew phrase was 'al 'arey lot, "by the
> cities of Lot." Now an overheated scribe suffering from low sodium intake
> during the summer copying session, looking at the initial `Ayin
> of "cities,"
> thought that he had already copied it, and left it out. That is
> how "by the
> cities of Lot" became simply "by Lot." God, upset that errors could creep
> into the holy book that She had written perfectly the first time, decreed
> that the Bible be translated into Greek so that such mistakes could no
> longer occur. Then, because the tribes who had to work in the salt mines
> remained faithful, they were allowed to convert to Christianity and become
> "the salt of the earth."
> This is lost, of course, in the Latin corruption of the original Greek.
> For God's sake, folks, I'm only kidding. But, LSU beat Tennessee last
> night, and thus we know that all things are possible.
> Shalom,
> Charles
>
>
>
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to b-hebrew as: [lizfried AT umich.edu]
> To unsubscribe, forward this message to
> $subst('Email.Unsub')
> To subscribe, send an email to join-b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu.





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page