Biblical Hebrew Forum

["B. M. Rocine" <brocine AT twcny.rr.com>]

B-Havarim,

What are the recommended sources for dating of BH poetry?  For my own needs, 
I am not especially interested in assigning particular poems to particular 
historical contexts.  I would simply like to get a handle on poems' *relative 
ages*--what is older, what is later.  I realize, however, that the dating of 
the poems may be achieved through historical criticism.  That's okay.  I just 
want some idea of a timeline for all the major poems and poetic sections of 
the Tanakh.  It sounds like such a simple request...anyone have a magic wand? 
 ;-)

Thanks,
Bryan



B. M. Rocine
Living Word Church
6101 Court St. Rd.
Syracuse, NY 13206

ph: 315.437.6744
fx: 315.437.6766
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From: "Charles David Isbell" <cisbell AT cox.net>
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Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Ancient Language Acquisition
Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2004 07:51:32 -0600
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Peter Kirk muses: "Incidentally, I would be curious along the lines of this
thread to know
 what people think about the notion that a person ought to learn Modern
Israeli Hebrew or spoken Arabic first, before learning ancient Semitic
languages."

Peter, I will share a personal reflection on this. My teacher, Cyrus Gordon,
learned Arabic and spoke it as fluently as a native. I once witnessed an
angry exchange with an Egyptian cab driver which convinced me that Gordon
could "think" on his feet with amazing alacrity. His Hebrew was also fluent
in spoken dialect, as I know from many conversations with him.  I know also
that Albright was fluent in both modern Hebrew and in Arabic.

Here is a second observation. During times that I have served as Rabbi or
Cantor in a local synagogue, I have often asked Israeli members to serve as
ba'al qore and to read the Torah portion. Because the pointing of the
Pentateuch uses rules far differently from the way yod, vav, and he are used
in modern Hebrew, they often found it impossible to read a biblical passage
at sight and get all the forms as the Massoretes had pointed them. HOWEVER,
if I loaned them a Tikkun la-Qor'im, they could grasp the biblical dialect
in a day or two, and then read the Torah passage in public easily. A groups
of students with a good grasp of modern Hebrew can read more Bible in one
semester than can a third year class of students who have slogged through
"biblical" Hebrew only, with no speaking and no internalization as normally
required with a modern language. I don't see much of a downside here. But
that is my personal experience and opinion only.

Charles