Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Heard, Christopher" <Christopher.Heard AT pepperdine.edu>]

On 12/23/04 11:16 AM, "Darrell Smith" <Darrell.H.Smith AT sceptreofjudah.org>
wrote:
> Perhaps I should have said: "the language of Noah and his sons, Shem in
> particular."  I.e., the ancestor of all the Semitic languages rather
> than "proto-Hebrew".  Also, a key word in your statement above is
> "recorded".  Remember, the righteous line of descendants from Adam has
> always been a remnant, a small election from the total populace, a
> peculiar and often obscure people overshadowed by the great kingdoms and
> affairs of man.
> 
> Now if a person chooses not to believe the historical accuracy of the
> Bible, 

Even if one _does_ accept the historicity of the stories in Genesis 1-11,
precisely as they are told, what warrant is there for believing that there
was _any_ linguistic continuity between the before-Babel speech and
after-Babel languages?

Chris 

-- 
R. Christopher Heard
Assistant Professor of Religion
Armstrong Fellow in Religion
Pepperdine University
http://faculty.pepperdine.edu/cheard
http://www.iTanakh.org
http://www.semioticsandexegesis.info