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b-hebrew - Re: reading unpointed Hebrew text, was [b-hebrew] Isaiah 53:8

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Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Moshe Shulman <mshulman AT ix.netcom.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: reading unpointed Hebrew text, was [b-hebrew] Isaiah 53:8
  • Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 11:17:47 +0000

On 17/12/2004 00:55, Moshe Shulman wrote:

At 07:30 PM 12/16/2004 -0500, you wrote:

... I prefer to read the unpointed text as it often makes more sense.
...



Karl, this is very true. I am quite fluent, and I find that it is easier to read the texts that do not have vowels then the ones that do. Most of the printed Hebrew texts do not have vowels.

Karl and Moshe, I can understand that this might well be true when you already have a good idea of what a text is supposed to mean, because you already know the story rather well from yeshiva or Sunday school. And this would surely have been true of readers from the late second Temple time until just before the Masoretes, as I suppose in those times only those already well educated in the Bible would have been allowed to read the precious scrolls.

But can you honestly say that you would be able to read with full understanding, and no ambiguity, an unpointed biblical Hebrew text with which you had no previous familiarity, and which included some rather difficult words and constructions? I'm not sure how good an example this is, but what about the book of Sirach, if you are not already familiar with it? Or newly released Dead Sea Scrolls? Of course here you have to allow for a little language change. But are there not material uncertainties in the readings of such texts because they are preserved (at least in Hebrew) only in unpointed form?

In other words, is your fluency more a tribute to your excellent Bible knowledge than to your ability to read the text?

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






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