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Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

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  • From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
  • To: "Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] A Question
  • Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 04:25:26 -0500

Dear Bryan Rocine:

But I thought I had limited my discussion
to issues brought up in the last few days
and how they affect our understanding of
Biblical Hebrew. I had it in the context of
examples of Biblical Hebrew.

All of us start with philosophical
presuppositions that affect how we
interpret the linguistic data that make up
Biblical Hebrew. Many don’t recognize their
presuppositions. I thought I had limited
the discussion to those presuppositions
that affect how I interpret the data,
giving examples.

People confidently claim that ancient
Hebrews adopted the Phoenician alphabet,
but that is based on a philosophical
presupposition that I don’t buy. They claim
that ancient Hebrew had more phonemes than
represented by the “Phoenician” alphabet,
but that again is based on beliefs with
which I disagree. The question as to when
Hebrew ceased being a language natively
spoken to one spoken fluently only by an
educated elite as a second language, is
answered very heavily influenced by how one
interprets the data, and one’s beliefs
influence that interpretation: most of my
letter was taken up with showing how my
beliefs affect my answer to this question.

My final paragraph indicated that all my
preceding paragraphs would be untenable if
one held to philosophical presuppositions
widely believed by members of this list,
and I indicated a couple reasons why.

How should I have discussed how one’s
philosophy affects his interpretation of
Biblical Hebrew? I apologize if I went too
far, but I thought that showing how my
beliefs influence how I recognize
linguistic patterns was the best way to go.

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: "B. M. Rocine" <brocine AT twcny.rr.com>

> Actually Karl, I have to agree with Uri's insinuation that the discussion
> has wandered out-of-bounds. We can discuss almost anything on this list if
> we only take a broad enough view of "context."
>
> Please all, let's limit our discussion to matters more closely related to
> Biblical Hebrew.
>
> Thank you for your cooperation--signed, the management! ;-)
>
> Bryan Rocine
> b-hebrew co-chair
--
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