Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

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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