Biblical Hebrew Forum

["wattswestmaas" <wattswestmaas AT eircom.net>]

Dear Dora,

At the moment I understand that MiSH'PaT is translated as Judgement, often
in a positive atmosphere and has different connotations than Justice.

Best regards - Chris from Ireland.



-----Original Message-----
From: Dora Smith [mailto:villandra AT austin.rr.com]
Sent: 16 May 2004 19:21
To: wattswestmaas; B-Hebrew
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] "Justice" in hebraic thinking


Chris:

You have my permission, which you don't need, to be a liberal Christian.
But I was thinking about bias in resources you might have immediately gotten
your hands on to look it up in.

You are doing the right thing by checking on what the word meant in the
original language.   When I get a chance, which could be today or days from
now, I'll look up what WAS the Hebrew word for justice - I think it's
Mishpah or Mizpah.   Mizpah might be the form that means to make a
judgement.   This is my vague memory from last week's Hebrew study.
People who actually know will soon straighten it right out!

In this case, not only the original language but the social history matter.
Israel's concept of justice was bound up in its social structure and social
history, and in its ties to Near Eastern culture.   I had to do quite a bit
of reading about Israelite history to get to it.

Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, Texas
villandra AT austin.rr.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "wattswestmaas" <wattswestmaas AT eircom.net>
To: "Dora Smith" <villandra AT austin.rr.com>; "B-Hebrew"
<b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2004 11:43 AM
Subject: RE: [b-hebrew] "Justice" in hebraic thinking


> Thankyou Dora, I can promise you one thing i am not a liberal christian.
It
> is my experience (since i speak another language as well) that in order to
> as fully as possible appreciate another language and understand it one is
at