Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 17/11/2004 23:29, Karl Randolph wrote:

> ...
> Harstad et al claim that the Byzantine tradition represents an older tradition than 
> Sinaiticus, Vaticanus and others of the "Coptic" tradition. They say that 
> accident of preservation does not necessarily mean older tradition.
>  

Well, you can speculate that the Byzantine pronunciation is an older one 
than the Nestlé etc one, but unless you can produce evidence for this 
(and you cannot) you have left the realm of scholarship and for that of 
speculation. And the word "Coptic" is quite inappropriate as these are 
Greek language texts, of a family sometimes described as Alexandrian, 
after the city founded by al-Iskandar = Dhul Karnain. He seems to be 
cropping up in every thread!

> Of interest to the B-Hebrew subject, the Byzantine tradition preserves more hard 
> consonants than the Nestlé text, e.g. Nazaret instead of Nazareth, Matthaion 
> instead of Maththaion, Kaparnaum instead of Kafarnaum (modern Kfarnahum) (e.g. 
> Matt. 4:13). However most hard consonants had turned to soft (t -> th, p -> 
> f, etc.) by that time, even in the Byzantine tradition.
>  

This seems to suggest that the spelling differences reflect a change in 
Greek rather than Hebrew pronunciation.


--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/