Biblical Hebrew Forum

[FPutnam AT biblical.edu]

Hi, Joe.

Great topic!

I am delighted to hear that you are working on the basis of verbal 
parallels, and encourage you to pursue this approach, rather than the 
far-too-common topical labels used by scholars (which tend to demonstrate 
their ingenuity at developing chiastically correspondences that 
conveniently fall into chiasms). <wry grin> I also encourage you to base 
your work on work on *explicit* verbal parallels, rather than semantic 
domains. The latter are certainly a legitimate linguistic function, but 
are too open to the manipulation that (once again) demonstrates scholarly 
ingenuity.

IMHO, we need to be extremely cautious in attempting to discern the 
general significance of any [chiastic] structures, as well as of any 
particular example thereof. Does a chiasm emphasize the terms in the 
means, in the extremes, or in some combination thereof? Without a good 
deal of input from cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics, as well as 
materials from comparative literature--especially literature where we have 
some control over the sources--we are merely guessing when we say, "The 
author used a chiasmus here because ..."  Adele Berlin's discussion of the 
signficance of [so-called] word pairs in light of psycho-linguistic 
research into word association illustrates this point.

Finally, from time to time, I notice chiasms in student papers (e.g., the 
order of a list of nouns on page 3 is reversed on page 7, or two verbs are 
used a second time, but in the opposite order). I have not kept score, but 
I can confidently say that few students to whom I have pointed this out 
realized that they had created a chiasm (well, one or two have done it 
just to see if I would notice). When the chiastic words are closer to each 
other, the student usually says something like, "I just changed the order 
for variety". [This doesn't prove anything, it merely illustrates the need 
for great humility when assessing the significance of literary forms from 
a world long ago and far away.]   :-)

Fred

Frederic Clarke Putnam, Ph.D.
Professor of Old Testament
Biblical Theological Seminary
Hatfield, Pennsylvania
215.368.5000x150
>From kwrandolph AT email.com  Tue Mar  9 14:19:18 2004
Return-Path: <kwrandolph AT email.com>
Delivered-To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Received: from webmail-outgoing.us4.outblaze.com
        (webmail-outgoing.us4.outblaze.com [205.158.62.67])
        by happyhouse.metalab.unc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id C19CA2001B
        for <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>; Tue,  9 Mar 2004 14:19:17 -0500 
(EST)
Received: from wfilter.us4.outblaze.com (wfilter.us4.outblaze.com
        [205.158.62.180])
        by webmail-outgoing.us4.outblaze.com (Postfix) with QMQP id
        C33E31800D7F
        for <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>; Tue,  9 Mar 2004 19:19:16 +0000 
(GMT)
X-OB-Received: from unknown (205.158.62.94)
        by wfilter.us4.outblaze.com; 9 Mar 2004 19:19:01 -0000
Received: by ws3-4.us4.outblaze.com (Postfix, from userid 1001)
        id AD2FC3CE273; Tue,  9 Mar 2004 19:19:16 +0000 (GMT)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: MIME-tools 5.41 (Entity 5.404)
Received: from [66.81.75.179] by ws3-4.us4.outblaze.com with http for
        kwrandolph AT email.com; Tue, 09 Mar 2004 14:19:16 -0500
From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
To: "Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2004 14:19:16 -0500
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] War machines and missiles in 2 chronicles
X-Originating-Ip: 66.81.75.179
X-Originating-Server: ws3-4.us4.outblaze.com
Message-Id: <20040309191916.AD2FC3CE273 AT ws3-4.us4.outblaze.com>
X-BeenThere: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.4
Precedence: list
List-Id: Hebrew Bible List <b-hebrew.lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew>,
        <mailto:b-hebrew-request AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew>
List-Post: <mailto:b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
List-Help: <mailto:sympa AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=HELP>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew>,
        <mailto:b-hebrew-request AT lists.ibiblio.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 09 Mar 2004 19:19:18 -0000


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

> On 07/03/2004 20:45, Karl Randolph wrote:
> 
> >But Peter: 
> > 
> >Here is a case where the root has the meaning of sending out, and the 
> >context is that of weaponry, putting two 
> >and two together we get four, i.e. this is weaponry that is sent out, 
> >namely projectiles (or missiles). The concept 
> >of projectiles also fits the context. To use the generalized term 
> >"weapon", though technically correct, is a tad 
> >misleading. 
> >  
> >
> 
> Well, we must avoid the etymological fallacy that the meaning of a word 
> is determined by its root consonants. But in a case like this it is 
> reasonable partial evidence, if supported e.g. by ancient versions and 
> interpretations, that these weapons were in fact projectiles or 
> missiles, either in general or of a specific kind. So I would be happy 
> with a translation "projectile", or even "missile" if modern 
> rocket-propelled ones are excluded. What I would not be happy with is a 
> guess about a specific kind of projectile.
>

Nor would I be happy. Some specific types of 
projectiles are already elsewhere defined 
[e.g. XC for arrow, )BN for stone, etc.] so in 
this context I say that this is a generic term 
for projectile.
> >  
> > …
> 
> Where the definition has been forgotten, surely it is better to admit 
> that and be generic than to use highly unreliable methods to reconstruct 
> a definition.

Agreed.

Where we disagree is a matter of degree rather 
than kind. I put more weight on the etymology 
than you do, but like you, I maintain that 
context trumps etymology. In the example 
above, $LX is a clue, but not a 
predeterminate. 

In the above example, knowing that at that 
time there were different types of projectiles 
used, it appears to refer to the general term 
“projectile” than to a specific type. Arrows, 
javelins, stones and even forgotten ones were 
used at that time, and the listed ones are 
named in Tanakh, so the generalized term looks 
like the correct definition. In this example, 
the etymology is a strong clue. But not in 
every case.
> 
> 
> -- 
> Peter Kirk
> peter AT qaya.org (personal)
> peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
> http://www.qaya.org/
> 
Karl W. Randolph.
-- 
___________________________________________________________
Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm