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  • From: "Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>
  • To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: hu=hi?
  • Date: Tue, 30 Jul 2002 21:52:20 -0600


>
> In a message dated 7/30/02 7:25:10 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> dwashbur AT nyx.net
> writes:
> But if we assume the Masoretes were preserving the pronunciation
> traditions as handed down to them, they should have known, as well. So
> none of this
> really helps to explain the phenomenon under consideration.
>
>
> I don't understand this. This Masoretes considered the consonantal text as
> fixed and pointed
> HW) as hi' when it was feminine because that was their pronunciation even
> though it did not
> correspond with the text. If the text at one time was written in a script
> in which like DSS the waw
> and yod were virtually indistinguishable, later conservative scribes could
> well have uniformly
> written HW) for HY) even though they knew very well how to pronounce it.
> This may well be
> evidence (as confusing as it is) for dating the fixing of the standard
> orthography of the Torah, but I
> do not at all see why this needs to be evidence for dating the composition
> of the Torah.
> ---
This kind of speculation gets us nowhere, so I won't pursue it except to
point out that
the Masoretes had no problem in other parts of the text using a Qere reading
to
"correct" a HW) reading to HY) when they felt it was necessary. But in the
Torah,
they did things differently. Why this should be so, is the question at hand.

Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur






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