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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] War machines and missiles in 2 chronicles

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  • From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
  • To: "Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] War machines and missiles in 2 chronicles
  • Date: Sat, 06 Mar 2004 01:42:25 -0500

Peter, Harold and others:

I should have looked up a thesaurus before making my question. Projectile is
a fitting term.

$LX is in the root of sending out, and as a weapon would be that which is
sent out, such as a projectile.

X$BNWT both from its context and root indicates that these are war machines,
though it does not indicate what sort of machine.

While there are a lot of words where we still have only a general idea of
what a term means, that is not an excuse to take only a general term, we
should be as specific as we can. This is one of the complaints I have against
most dictionaries, for when a generalized term is used, why not a more
generalized term, why not a term so generalized that it is practically
meaningless?

Though in this example, a generalized term does not make much difference, in
other cases can lead to misunderstanding. And it makes it much harder to
learn a language. At least I found it much harder to learn vocabulary when
most terms are generalized terms, and it was hard to differentiate synonyms.

Karl W. Randolph.


----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>

> On 05/03/2004 15:18, Harold R. Holmyard III wrote:
>
> >
> >I replied,"That's not a good comparison. Tables have not changed that much
> >from ancient Israel. But there were no rockets or explosives back then."
> >
> >
>
> But lamps and torches have. (Remember that British and probably Kenyan
> English "torch" = American "flashlight".) So Chemorion does have a
> point, there are things mentioned in Bible translations which are
> probably very different in form from what the average reader understands
> them to be, although similar in function. Even so, I suspect that
> "missiles" is going too far.
>
>
> Agreed. The uncertainty is a good reason to choose a rather generic word.
>
>
> --
> Peter Kirk
> peter AT qaya.org (personal)
> peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
> http://www.qaya.org/
--
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