Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yigal Levin" <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

I agree. We have such a limited corpus of "Biblical Hebrew" that I don't
think that it is possible to really "think" (that is, have creative,
original thoughts) in it. However Biblical Hebrew is part of a linguistic
process, which includes Second Temple, Mishnaic, Gaonic, Medieval and Modern
Hebrew. Beyond the widely expanded lexicon, MH is not that different than
BH. My second grade daughter (for those of y'all who don't know, I live in
Israel) reads the Bible much more easily that a second grade American could
read the KJV - obviously not on an adult level, but most of the basic
vocabulary and syntax is no problem for her. The fact that so many fine
Bible scholars feel that they can ignore anything written in MH is very
problematic - no scholar of, say, Medieval French or German literature would
ever be able to get away with not reading Modern French or German.

Yigal

----- Original Message -----
From: <Polycarp66 AT aol.com>
To: <dwashbur AT nyx.net>; <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 17, 2004 9:20 PM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Re: Lexicography - (was Gen. 1:26--Connotation of
thebeth pre...


> In a message dated 1/17/2004 2:04:00 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> dwashbur AT nyx.net writes:
>
> > >Biblical Hebrew, on the other hand, I can read without translating.
Often,
> > >when thinking about concepts I read in Tanakh, the thoughts come to my
mind
> > >in Hebrew, sometimes only a phrase, sometimes two or three sentences at
a
> > >time. It is not carrying on a conversation, it is not even fluent, but
it
> > >is thoughts coming to my mind in Hebrew without translating from
another
> > >language. If that isn’t “thinking in Hebrew” what is it?
> >
> > Agreed.  I do the same thing, both with biblical Hebrew and NT Greek.
On
> > occasion I have caught myself thinking a Hebrew or Greek word or phrase
in
> > the midst of a conversation.  Once it even came out: I was talking with
a
> > person in Spanish, and at a particular point my mind switched to Greek
and I
> >
> > finished a Spanish sentence with a Koine Greek (not modern, I don't know
> > modern Greek or Hebrew) word.  The other fellow stared at me as if I had
two
> >
> > heads :-)
> >
> > The point is, it is in fact possible to think in biblical Hebrew, and
there
> > are many of us who do just that.
> >
>
> ______
>
> This isn't really quite what I understand when one says "Think in X."
Yes,
> it's possible to read a passage in another language and not sit there
almost
> (if not actually) writing down a translation.  Also, there are things
which come
> to mind from reading in a language which simply come out in that language.
> Why do we say "Cogito ergo sum" rather than "I think therefore I am"?
Because
> we learned it that way.  These are simply a library of phrases which we
can
> call up on occassion.  I don't consider this "thinking" in a language.
>
> gfsomsel
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