Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Kirk Lowery <klowery AT wts.edu>]

Jim West wrote:

> > Or if you want to join the modern 
> > world you can upgrade for free to Netscape 7.1 (released yesterday, 
> > ftp://ftp.netscape.com/pub/netscape7/english/7.1) or Outlook Express 6 
> > (or 5 if you prefer) and then you will be able to read David's message fine.
>
>
> Again, wow!  But I dont want netscape.  I want transliteration as required
> by all who subscribe to the list - unless the owners changed the rules and
> didnt tell me.

No. The rules are the same. But the issue isn't the browser, but one's 
email clients ability to handle UTF-8.

Just a claification. Our list charter does define a transliteration 
scheme. You can view it at <http://ibiblio.org/bhebrew/>. It's 
intended as a standard that everyone can live with. It's not intended 
to be a straight-jacket. Many people have used variants of the 
Michigan encoding scheme, or others common in Israel, etc. As long as 
the poster's intent is clear, that's all the matters.

We're in a difficult period of transition: Unicode is rapidly becoming 
the most common encoding of computers and software that people use -- 
but it is not yet the *lowest* common denominator. And the original 
poster, David Gray, evidently understands this, for he included a 
transliteration. (By the way, the same logic underlies our policy of 
"no html" which our list software enforces. Not all email clients can 
handle html.)

There has been discussion about an eventual transfer to Unicode, but 
such a change will have to be after we can be sure everyone is capable 
of handling that change. And I can't see b-hebrew changing encoding 
systems for a couple of years yet.

Until then, transliteration is still the best option for you, if you 
want your postings to be clear.

Blessings,

Kirk
B-Hebrew co-chair
--
Kirk E. Lowery, Ph.D.
Director, Westminster Hebrew Institute
Adjunct Professor of Old Testament
Westminster Theological Seminary, Philadelphia

Theorie ist, wenn man alles weiss und nichts klappt.
Praxis ist, wenn alles klappt und keiner weiss warum.
Bei uns sind Theorie und Praxis vereint:
nichts klappt und keiner weiss warum!