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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Isaiah 53:8 lamo

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Vadim Cherny <vadim_lv AT center-tv.net>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Isaiah 53:8 lamo
  • Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 14:05:54 +0000

On 20/12/2004 13:23, Vadim Cherny wrote:

Everywhere but in Hebrew and to some extent in Chinese. Of course, modern
languages, for one, deviated from etymological meaning, and for another,
accumulated huge contexts. This does not work with Tanakh, ...




So, are you claiming that Hebrew was preserved by divine intervention
from the processes which affected all other human languages? Hebrew
already had centuries, maybe millennia of use before the Bible was
written and had plenty of time to accumulate "huge contexts" and
semantic shift.


Had we possess these contexts now, I would agree with you. Since Tanakh is
more or less all we have from that time, other texts amounting to a fraction
of it, we have too little data for contextual analysis. Etymological
analysis is a better bet.
Had we the Library of Congress amount of data for Hebrew, I would agree with
you that we have to proceed contextually.


We don't have the contexts to work from, I agree. But they did exist in ancient times, at least in spoken language if not in written. The implication is that semantic shift did take place - even if we don't have evidence of it. This implies that etymological analysis is seriously flawed.

If you are not convinced, follow George's excellent advice and read James Barr.


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






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