Biblical Hebrew Forum

["A. Philip Brown II" <APBROWN2 AT prodigy.net>]

Hi, Karl,

The glosses I will list will be (1) KB, (2) BDB where 
different from KB, and (3) our (I & my co-author) own 
personal offerings where we disagree with both.

Where KB & BDB are uncertain of a meaning, I think it 
would be appropriate to note that with some kind of 
sigla. I haven't decided exactly how that will be 
handled.

You are free to disagree with Gesenius and BDB, but 
your disagreement with them does not constitute a 
scholarly refutation of the senses they offer. Have 
you written such refutations?  If so, I'd be happy to 
consider them.

You seem to forget, no offense intended, from whence 
you came in your Hebrew studies. The very fact that 
you started with Gesenius and BDB means you were 
initially dependent upon them for direction. After you 
read enough to form your own opinion, you were freed 
from relying upon them.  Great! I applaud your 
diligence. The volume I am proposing, however, would 
have saved you much page-turning time,and would be no 
more likely to enslave you to its glosses than your 
use of Gesenius and BDB was.

I'm glad we share a desire to see the reading of the 
Hebrew Scriptures increase and spread. I am not 
offering this as "the best way" to accomplish this.  I 
am offering as "a way" and, IMO, a good way to do it. 
This volume will naturally not take the place of 
electronic tools, or BHS4, since it will have no 
apparatus. I hope to add a plank to the bridge that 
brings students across the chasm between English and 
Hebrew.

Shalom uvrecha,

Philip Brown
--- Original Message ---
From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
To: "A. Philip Brown II" <apbrown2 AT prodigy.net>
Subject: RE: [b-hebrew] A Reader's Hebrew Old 
Testament, pre-Masorete?

>Philip:
>
>You want your students to read the text devotionally? 
That's precisely why =
>I read Tanakh over and over again. In Hebrew. It was 
after a few times thro=
>ugh that I realized that Gesenius and BDB were often 
wrong. The last paper =
>dictionary I used was Lisowski's concordance, and I 
often disagreed with hi=
>s glosses, after looking at all the occurances of a 
lexeme in the text and =
>comparing them with synonyms. And how many of the 
Ketib vs. Qere readings a=
>re the result of incorrect pointing? How many to 
sloppy lexecography? What =
>I notice is that 90+% of the time I prefer Ketib as 
giving a better reading=
> with the unpointed 
text.=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=
>=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20
=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=
>=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20=20
>
>Another question: how closely will you follow the 
glosses given in BDB, KB =
>or other dictionaries? For example, one of my first 
postings on this list w=
>as a question concerning THW WBHW (Gen. 1:2) which I 
came to understand as =
>"uninhabited (lifeless) and still", but I found on 
this list that there is =
>a lively difference in opinion based on theological 
leanings, some of whom =
>agree with me, others with BDB. Which meaning will 
you give? Or how about R=
>XP in the same verse? From its other two uses in 
Deut. 32:11 and Jer. 23:9,=
> it cannot mean "to hover or flutter", but all three 
uses reflect a coming =
>to rest, as an eagle upon its chicks in a nourishing 
manner, as bones of a =
>dejected person who finds it hard to get up the 
energy to move, and as the =
>Spirit of God coming to rest upon the face of the 
waters. There are many ot=
>her similar questions, most often occuring with 
lexemes that are found 10 o=
>r fewer times in Tanakh. How will you deal with these 
and similar questions=
>? Will you indicate where scholars are uncertain as 
to the definition of le=
>xemes?
>
>You mentioned that students are ignorant of Hebrew 
grammar. Or is it that t=
>hey are ignorant of grammar? That they don=92t 
recognize how to look for a =
>subject, verb and object, and what are adjectives and 
adverbs? And it doesn=
>'t matter which language? (To give an example, one of 
my sons studied Japan=
>ese in high school for three years, and I was 
surprised that in a few hours=
> reading a Japanese grammar which I picked up in a 
Japanese bookstore in to=
>wn that I knew more Japanese grammar and syntax than 
he. What did they teac=
>h in his class?) Can your students diagram an English 
sentence?
>
>I share your desire that those who believe Tanakh 
actually read it in Hebre=
>w, I just wonder which is the best way to go about it.
>
>In closing, years ago an older and wiser friend 
counselled me not to go int=
>o Hebrew studies as there were 10 PhD candidates for 
every opening for teac=
>hing. Following his advice, I failed at every other 
thing that I attempted.=
> But I figured two semesters of Hebrew classes were 
enough to allow me to r=
>ead Tanakh devotionally, which I did. Yes, I leafed 
through dictionaries ti=
>me and time again. I did it so often that I added 
marks on page edges to sp=
>eed things up. I seriously wonder if I would have 
learned as much had I had=
> the tool you are proposing?
>
>Yours, Karl W. Randolph.
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "A. Philip Brown II" <apbrown2 AT prodigy.net>
>
>>=20
>> Hi, Karl,
>>=20
>> Syntagmatic relationships is just the linguistic 
term for context,
>> specifically lexical-syntactical context. Knowing 
the possible roots could
>> be called the paradigmatic relationship that the 
root shares with other
>> potential roots.
>>=20
>> You say, "expected is that a student will know his 
Hebrew grammar."  (1)
>> Most don't. (2) The way grammars were written was 
by reading until patter=
>ns
>> were identified. (3) I think learning grammar apart 
from reading/seeing it
>> in context is not optimal.
>>=20
>> As I Hebrew instructor I am constantly trying to 
mix the deductive and
>> inductive approaches. The book I am proposing is 
nothing more than a
>> contextually-nuanced, concise lexicon and the 
Hebrew text wedded in one
>> volume. It will facilitate precisely what students 
need to do most: read =
>the
>> text.
>>=20
>> Thanks for your comments.
>>=20
>> Philip
>--=20
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