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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Psa 107:19-21 (was WAYYIQTOL) -- CORRECTION

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  • From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
  • To: "Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Psa 107:19-21 (was WAYYIQTOL) -- CORRECTION
  • Date: Mon, 15 Mar 2004 02:13:44 -0500

gfsomsel:

This was a question that I never expected
to ask. I had been taught in class that the
Masoritic points preserved the original
pronunciation. I didn’t question my prof,
not even years later.

But if Rolf is correct, even some of the
pronunciations that we thought we knew from
the Masoretes are wrong.

When I learned the pre-exilic Hebrew font
face and noticed that the glyphs were very
similar to Greek, my reaction was, do you
suppose? . . . Nah.

Then I noticed in Nehemiah that apparently
the samech had the ‘x’ or ‘ks’ sound, that
in Ezra apparently Aramaic did not have
that sound, that in the New Testament I
came across a few places where I found a
‘t’ or a ‘p’ where I expected to find a
theta or ‘f’ according to Masoritic
pronunciations, and so forth, I can’t help
but question.

Right now I have another question: is it
possible that Biblical Hebrew pronunciation
originally consisted of each consonant
being followed by a vowel? So that a house
would have been a “beta”, a door a
“deleta”, a palm of a hand a “kapa” and so
forth? I haven’t the vaguest idea how to
demonstrate this idea, just that as I try
to read the unpointed text out loud, the
intuitive impression I get is that’s the
way it feels it should be spoken.

There are two things that need to be kept
in mind in these questions: 1) with very
rare exceptions, they make no difference
semantically, i.e. they won’t affect
translations and 2) there is no definitive
way either to prove or to disprove these
questions (that I know of), so it just
makes them interesting speculation.

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: Polycarp66 AT aol.com

> In a message dated 3/14/2004 10:21:23 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> Polycarp66 AT aol.com writes:
> I'm afraid you lost me here. If the tradition which the Masoretes recorded
> predated them and that's all we have that goes back even that far, how can
> you
> know that the traditions don't reflect the original pronunciation? We can
> obviously know nothing regarding the original pronunciation unless it is
> for
> such
> items as were virtually transliterated into the Greek of the LXX. Are you
> privy to some special revelation concerning this?
> ______
>
> I should have said "We can obviously know nothing regarding A MORE ORIGINAL
> pronunciation."
>
> gfsomsel

--
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