Biblical Hebrew Forum

["George F. Somsel" <gfsomsel AT juno.com>]

On Wed, 08 Sep 2004 16:02:26 -0500 "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
writes:
> George:
> 
> I live in an area where there are many immigrants from Hong Kong and 
> China. When they view their children who were born and grew up here, 
> they see “Chinese” people. Even many of the children in this day of 
> multiculturalism and political correctness see themselves as 
> “Chinese” even though many don’t speak Chinese or speak it very 
> poorly. Sometimes they are refered to as ABC—American Born 
> Chinese—as acknowledgement to birth place. But in previous times 
> when people tended to gather in groups, communities could maintain 
> their ethnic, social and linguistic identities over a few 
> generations, even after immigrating to a different country. Many of 
> the older immigrants never needed to learn English for that very 
> reason.
> 
> My grandparents, who were brought here by their parents, grew up in 
> non-English speaking communities.
> 
> So to give a statement that sounds similar to the phrase in 
> question, “The Chinese born in this land are called ABCs.”
> 
> Karl W. Randolph.
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "George F. Somsel" <gfsomsel AT juno.com>
> 
> > On Tue, 07 Sep 2004 00:04:57 -0500 "Karl Randolph" 
> <kwrandolph AT email.com>
> > writes:
> > > Peter:
> > > 
> > > I think the reference, HNWLDYM B)RC indicates that these “men of 
> 
> > > Gath” were not born in Gath, rather born somewhere else. But 
> right 
> > > now I can’t prove it.
> > > 
> > > Karl W. Randolph.
> > > 
> > _______________
> > 
> > That makes about as much sense as to say that "the citizens of 
> California
> > who were born in the United States" indicates that these citizens 
> were
> > born in Maine.  That makes no sense whatsoever.
> > 
> > george
> > gfsomsel
> ___________________________________________________________

Karl,

But the statement is not that they were "called" anything.  It is that
they "did" something, viz. killed the sons of Ephraim.  This was not a
military action involving an invader but "men of Gath who were born in
the land."  It would seem to me that this is the implication of "born in
the land", not that the scene is located elsewhere (viz. Egypt).  As you
and Peter have been discussing, the term (M H)RC in many cases is
determined either explicitly (people of the land of Moab) or implicitly
by its context.  I do see a tendency in the Deuteronomist and in the
Deuteronimistic writings to use H)RC to refer to Israel.

george
gfsomsel