Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

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/