Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>]

It is a good book, but like anything written on the subject , speculative. 
Prominent archaeologists like Mazar and Ben-Tor completely disagree with 
Finkelstein on the tenth/ninth century, for instance.
When the general subject of  'dating the Bible' arises it is not clear  what 
stage of biblical composition is under discussion, since it underwent so many 
reworkings and editions. There is no consensus on the matter.
For an excellent summary of Israelite literacy which succinctly sums up 
extrabiblical findings by individual centuries see:
    Literacy in Iron Age Israel by Richard S. Hess 
    in the volume: Windows into Old Testament History ed. Long, Baker and 
Winham, Eerdmans, 2002.
 
 Uri
 
  BTW ,Noam and Naomi are different names, the first- M , the second,and 
better known, -F.

"Walter R. Mattfeld" <mattfeld12 AT charter.net> wrote:
I can "second" Naomi's nomination, _The Bible Unearthed, Archaeology['s New
Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts_ by Israel
Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman (The Free Press. 2001). Another equally
important book with similar conclusions, is Profesor Burton MacDonald, _East
of the Jordan, Territories and Sites of the Hebrew Scriptures_(Boston.
American Schools of Oriental Research. 2000). Like Finkelstein and
Silberman, MacDonald concludes that the archaeological evidence suggests
that the Exodus narratives were written between 640-562 BCE, because this
the ONLY era that most of sites appearing in the narratives are in existence
at the same time and contemporary with each other. Of interest is that
MacDonald's book is on-line and "free to read by the public," its in Adobe
PDF format (with viewable text, tables, maps and illustrations) at the
following url :

http://www.asor.org/pubs/macdonald.pdf

Regards, Walter
Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y de la Torre, M.A. Ed.
e-mail:
mattfeld12 AT charter.net
website:
www.bibleorigins.net


_______________________________________________
b-hebrew mailing list
b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew

---------------------------------
Do you Yahoo!?
Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard
>From kwrandolph AT email.com  Mon Nov 17 00:08:45 2003
Return-Path: <kwrandolph AT email.com>
Delivered-To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Received: from spf13.us4.outblaze.com (205-158-62-67.outblaze.com
        [205.158.62.67])
        by happyhouse.metalab.unc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 40DDA20006
        for <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>; Mon, 17 Nov 2003 00:08:45 -0500 
(EST)
Received: from 205-158-62-146.outblaze.com (205-158-62-146.outblaze.com
        [205.158.62.146])
        by spf13.us4.outblaze.com (Postfix) with QMQP id A5CF41801268
        for <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>; Mon, 17 Nov 2003 05:08:44 +0000 
(GMT)
Received: (qmail 2307 invoked from network); 17 Nov 2003 05:08:44 -0000
Received: from unknown (HELO ws3-4.us4.outblaze.com) (205.158.62.94)
        by 205-158-62-146.outblaze.com with SMTP; 17 Nov 2003 05:08:44 -0000
Received: (qmail 6585 invoked by uid 1001); 17 Nov 2003 05:08:44 -0000
Message-ID: <20031117050844.6584.qmail AT email.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: MIME-tools 5.41 (Entity 5.404)
Received: from [66.81.65.19] by ws3-4.us4.outblaze.com with http for
        kwrandolph AT email.com; Mon, 17 Nov 2003 00:08:44 -0500
From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
To: "Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 00:08:44 -0500
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] lexicography
X-Originating-Ip: 66.81.65.19
X-Originating-Server: ws3-4.us4.outblaze.com
X-BeenThere: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.2
Precedence: list
List-Id: A forum on the Hebrew Bible, its language and interpretation
        <b-hebrew.lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew>,
        <mailto:b-hebrew-request AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew>
List-Post: <mailto:b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Help: <mailto:sympa AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=HELP>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew>,
        <mailto:b-hebrew-request AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2003 05:08:45 -0000

Dave:

Your examples in English do show up exactly what I mean.

For example, “strike”, especially when one looks at the history of the term, 
refers to an action. It is the motion of one object towards another 
irrespective of whether the objects make physical contact or not. That action 
is shown in the swing of a bat in baseball, the swing of the baton in the 
hand of a band’s conductor, the motion of sails towards the deck as sailors 
lower sails to protest bad conditions.

It is also an example of how languages shift meanings, such as including the 
result of when two objects, after moving towards each other, try to occupy 
the same volume; in the narrow confines of a particular ball game, where if 
the ball thrown by the pitcher traverses a certain restricted volume where it 
should be easiest for the batter to swing, would be counted as if the batter 
had swung his bat and missed; and where the term is taken out of its original 
context and applied to a new context, so just as a ship where the sailors 
struck the sails is dead in the water unable to travel and trade, so a 
company whose workers have struck it is unable to manufacture and trade. 
Though these accretians over time obscure the core meaning, it is still 
recognizable if one looks for it.

Your example of “bad” shows a dialectal and/or argot use by a small minority 
within a population. The majority recognize and understand that argot usage, 
but don’t use it because it is considered bad form. Should the minority usage 
ever become mainstream, then we have an example of language shift.

Most lexemes don’t have such historical accretians and/or argot usage that 
obscure the core meaning of a word.

I have found the same pattern in every language I studied. And if I limit 
myself to Biblical Hebrew, ignoring the accretians and shifts of 
post-Biblical Hebrew, the core meaning is usually, not always, fairly easy to 
recognize.

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: Dave Washburn <dwashbur AT nyx.net>
> On Sunday 16 November 2003 02:12, Karl Randolph wrote:

> > The first lesson I learned is that lexemes have one core meaning (unless
> > where there are two lexemes with the same pronunciation that have merged,
> > like “to” and “two” in English). I found it easiest to learn to use the
> > lexemes correctly if I could learn that core definition to recognize how 
> > it
> > is used, even if it didn’t make sense in English. 
> 
> Interesting.  Let's look at one of my favorite English examples.
> 
> Strike can mean:
> -to hit (strike the rock with your staff)
> -to miss (in baseball)
> -to start something (strike up the band)
> -to stop something (go on strike)
> 
> to name just a few.  Here we have one lexeme with at least two meanings, 
> plus 
> two more that are polar opposites of the first two.  What exactly is the 
> "core definition"?
> 
> Another quickie from English:
> -my car has BAD tires
> -those are some BAD shoes, dude
> 
> The former carries negative connotation, the latter positive.
> 
> IMNSHO, there's no such thing as an actual "core definition."  Words mean 
> what 
> they mean because a society chooses to use them that way.  In America, 
> "breakfast" used to mean "a meal taken at a particular time of day."  Now, 
> thanks in large measure to Village Inn, it means "a particular group of 
> foods."  And so it goes.  To me, looking for some "core definition" rather 
> than just examining usage in a given context, makes the task of grasping 
> Hebrew (or any other language, for that matter) just that much more 
> difficult.  YMMV.
> 
> -- 
> Dave Washburn
> http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
-- 
__________________________________________________________
Sign-up for your own personalized E-mail at Mail.com
http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup

Search Smarter - get the new eXact Search Bar for free!
http://www.exactsearchbar.com/