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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Dahood on `ecah, derek, mow$ab

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Dahood on `ecah, derek, mow$ab
  • Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2003 13:31:13 -0700

On 01/10/2003 12:42, Dave Washburn wrote:

...

Bryan,
Dahood's approach really threw the scholarly world for a loop when it first appeared, because his extensive use of Ugaritic in his lexicography stood the field on its collective ear. Some of his proposals are speculative, as Peter suggested; however, Ugaritic exists and we need to deal with it. Unfortunately, that means that a lot of folks' houses of cards come tumbling down if Dahood's approach is viable. Hence, the scholarly world has done with Dahood's commentaries on Psalms what it frequently does with drastic new ideas based on new evidence: it has ignored them in favor of Qumran and the versions (again, see Peter's response).


I don't think this is fair. Dahood's reconstructions were not ignored arbitrarily. Before Dahood's commentaries were published, his methodology of reliance on a cognate language had already, along with all other etymological approaches to determining the meaning of words, been thoroughly weighed in the balance and found seriously wanting by James Barr, e.g. in "The Semantics of Biblical Language" (1961). Most scholars have accepted Barr's arguments and so rejected such etymologising.

Dahood in his lifetime was aware of this trend; in a festschrift for Cyrus H. Gordon he wrote an article, "Ugaritic and Phoenician or Qumran and the Versions" (_Orient and Occident: Essays Presented to Cyrus H. Gordon on the Occasion of his Sixty-Fifth Birthday_, ed. by Harry A. Hoffner, Jr. AOAT 22 Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1973, p. 53-58) in which he argued strongly that evidence from the Palestinian/Canaanite languages, Ugaritic and Phoenician, is much more important and useful than the Qumran materials for understanding the HB. I highly recommend it.


I haven't read this. It does sound interesting. But does Dahood, writing twelve years after Barr, give a convincing answer to Barr's criticism of his methodology?

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/






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