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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Re: 22nd Psalm - Verb Object Again

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Moshe Shulman <mshulman AT ix.netcom.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Re: 22nd Psalm - Verb Object Again
  • Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2003 03:15:48 -0800

On 05/12/2003 02:48, Moshe Shulman wrote:

...
The reading is K)RW, and this has some serious difficulties with it, since the aleph makes it a poor conjugation for the verb KRH. I have always considered this another example of poor writing skills, and the correct reading should be K)RY, the last letter being an elongated yod, a very common situation in the DSS. Otherwise we have a verb without a root.


More precisely, otherwise we have a hapax. How many hapaxes in the Hebrew Bible? I can give a simple answer to that: as many as 3220 lexical items (including proper names), as distinguished in the Westminster morphological database, out of a total of 9521 lexical items - although many of these do have cognates with the same root. Even of the smaller number of hapaxes which have no known cognate with the same root, how many have been confirmed as genuine rather than scribal errors from cognate languages, ancient versions etc? It is simply bad logic to argue that a hapax implies a corrupt text.

Actually I would consider that the LXX evidence proves that this word in question is a genuine hapax. It certainly proves that the Nahal Hever reading is more than the slip of one scribe's pen in the 1st century CE: the LXX translator, probably a century or two earlier and several hundred miles away, did not read K)RY, but read a 3rd person plural verb which strongly indicates a final vav.

The LXX translator also read this verb as derived from KRH "dig" or something very similar. This may have been correct; or it may have been his or her best conjecture at a root whose meaning was already obscure.

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






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