Biblical Hebrew Forum

[gfsomsel AT juno.com]

On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 13:08:18 -0500 "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
writes:
> George:
> 
> What do we know about Hebrew prior to "putative Moses"? Only what is 
> referring to earlier events written in Hebrew. Did Moses edit those 
> earlier stories to make them conform to the Hebrew of his time? 
> There is no way that I know of that we can tell, either way.
> 
Just what are these "earlier events written in Hebrew"?  If Moses
supposedly is responsible for the entire Pentateuch, then how are you to
distinguish which are earlier?

> As for the dating of the Ugaritic texts, there was a debate in this 
> forum not long ago concerning the accuracy of traditional dates. But 
> even the earliest dates for the Ugaritic literature that I have seen 
> (ca. 1200 BCE) is still well after Moses (who wrote ca. 1450-1400 
> BCE). If Rohl and others like him are correct, even that date is a 
> couple of centuries too early.
> 
That's an absurd date for this supposed figure.  BTW:  There probably was
a "Moses" to whom many legends accreted, but this was not the Moses
portrayed in the Pentateuch.

> As for the literary style I referred to, it was not unique to 
> Hebrew, rather it was one shared by other cultures as well, where 
> the title and author were listed at the end of a document, not the 
> beginning. There are several places in Genesis that hint, if not 
> more, at inclusion of documents using this style.
> 
I think you will find that these documents mentioned are not quoted
extensively.  Only small selections are used. 

> As far as *your* dating is concerned, in the absence of historical 
> documents other than Tanakh that can either confirm or disprove the 
> accuracy of Tanakh as a historical document, how can your dates be 
> anything other than theologically based?

There are inconsistencies within the Tanak itself as well as the "lack of
evidence" from archaeology whose shouting is becoming deafening.

george
gfsomsel


> 
> Karl W. Randolph.
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: gfsomsel AT juno.com
> 
> > 
> > On Wed, 17 Nov 2004 01:31:24 -0500 "Karl Randolph" 
> <kwrandolph AT email.com>
> > writes:
> > > George:
> > > 
> > > When was the earliest Hebrew written? The earliest Phoenician? 
> > > 
> > > Since the earliest historical records of writing in Hebrew were 
> on 
> > > what we today would call leather scrolls, the earliest 
> specifically 
> > > mentioning writing before 1400 BCE, wouldn?t that put it earlier 
> 
> > > than the earliest Phoenician writing? And even though Genesis 
> does 
> > > not specifically mention writing, that it preserves a literary 
> style 
> > > that went out of style before Moses, that implies writing 
> centuries 
> > > before Moses.
> > > 
> > > The next question, do you trust the historical records, and why? 
> I 
> > > would not be surprised that if you don?t trust the records, it 
> is 
> > > for theological and not historical reasons.
> > > 
> > > Karl W. Randolph.
> > > 
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: gfsomsel AT juno.com
>  
> > ____________
> > 
> > How do you know what Hebrew may or may not have been prior to a 
> putative
> > Moses?  Do you have any examples of Hebrew to support your 
> argument that
> > Genesis displays a style of writing prior to such time?
> > 
> > How about the Ugaritic materials?  These were prior to any 
> supposed Moses
> > and were of the region concerned.   Also, reminiscences common to
> > Ugaritic material are found in the Tanak.  This is likely material 
> common
> > to the NW Semitic region.  It has been preserved at Ras Shamra due 
> to the
> > fact that it was recorded on clay tablets as were the Akkadian 
> and
> > Babylonian writings.  I think your dating is purely theologically
> > motivated.
> > 
> > george
> > gfsomsel
> > 
> 
> -- 
> ___________________________________________________________
> Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
> http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm
> 
> _______________________________________________
> b-hebrew mailing list
> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
> 
> 


george
gfsomsel
>From MarianneLuban AT aol.com  Wed Nov 17 14:02:06 2004
Return-Path: <MarianneLuban AT aol.com>
X-Original-To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Delivered-To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Received: from imo-m25.mx.aol.com (imo-m25.mx.aol.com [64.12.137.6])
        by happyhouse.metalab.unc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9CEFB4C005
        for <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>; Wed, 17 Nov 2004 14:02:06 -0500 
(EST)
Received: from MarianneLuban AT aol.com
        by imo-m25.mx.aol.com (mail_out_v37_r3.8.) id 3.126.5040dc4f (4459)
        for <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>; Wed, 17 Nov 2004 14:02:02 -0500 
(EST)
From: MarianneLuban AT aol.com
Message-ID: <126.5040dc4f.2eccfa2a AT aol.com>
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 14:02:02 EST
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Re: PS /g/
To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: 7.0 for Windows sub 10712
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5
X-BeenThere: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5
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: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 19:02:06 -0000

In a message dated 11/17/2004 1:28:20 AM Pacific Standard Time, 
yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com writes:


> Furthermore, it seems the Egyptian phoneme you describe had the
> phonetic value /c/.  In Phonologies of Asia and Africa, ch. 22, 
> Antonio Loprieno writes on this: "Egyptian /c/, which is the
> palatal phoneme usually transcribed t_ by Egyptologists, [...]
> can be used to shed some light on the value of the phoneme /s/
> (samekh), which must originally have been an affricate [ts] in
> Semitic."


Well, Loprieno is a respected philologist, but I don't know about this.  As I 
said /T/, not /t/ --later became interchangeable in "Egyptian" writing "by a 
false archaism", according to Gardiner.  But I don't see /T/ being used for 
"ts" in the orthography, the transliteration of Semitic terms.  For that two 
other signs are employed, Gardiner's G47 (wild duck) and I10 (snake).  Ever 
since 
Budge's old dictionary, G47 is classified with /T/ [T13--"tethering 
rope"]--as though they represented the same sound.  But the Egyptians did not 
have 
glyphs representing the same sound, only inventing a few to represent the 
same 
sound when the original was too difficult to draw and also did not always fit 
into a spacial context.  For example, an owl was the sign for "m", but an owl 
is 
time-consuming to depict and, as "m" was employed a lot, another sign that 
consists of three joined lines was contrived to take its place whenever one 
was 
in a hurry or an owl could not fit into the space--Egyptians liked their 
writing to look nice and "balanced"on the monuments.  But G47 (also not easy 
to 
draw) and T13 always co-existed, and it is now clear that G47 was a 
bi-literal 
sign, that is representing both a consonant and a vowel--which is not true of 
/T/.  G47 was either "zi" or "tzi".  Some people glibly say the Egyptians 
wrote 
only with consonants, but that is only true of the basic sign few signs.  
When 
one has got a graphic system consisting of some 700 hieroglyphs, one cannot 
only write with consonants as most of the signs were syllabic, that is "ba, 
sa", 
etc.  So Egyptian is different, being neither strictly an alphabet nor a 
syllabary--but a combo of both.  Anyway, in the writing of Semitic words, /T/ 
represents samekh, NOT tzade--so that certainly must be taken into 
consideration.  
I, personally, cannot see "ts" becoming a "t" by any archaism, false or 
otherwise, but I can certainly see that happening to "th".