Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>

> I would stop discussing this issue, ...
> 
> 
> Vadim Cherny

That would be a good idea.

You don't have to have the final word.

>From what I have seen of the language, I have come to the following 
>conclusions:

1) the Masorites recorded their points to the Hebrew that they heard. They 
didn't pull their points out of thin air.

2) Hebrew had ceased to be a spoken language at the hearth and in the market 
for about a thousand years by the time the Masoretes came on the scene, but, 
like Latin in western Europe, continued on as the language of official 
records, scholarship and religion. Again like Latin, it was a sign of an 
educated man that he could speak in Hebrew, no matter what the language he 
was taught at his mother's knee.

3) there were regional differences in Hebrew pronunciation. These regional 
differences show up in manuscript traditions of the New Testament as well: 
the Byzantine family of mms appears to me to be slightly closer to the 
Masoretic points than the Coptic family, which includes many of the oldest 
surviving manuscripts -- the LXX reflects more the Coptic regional 
pronunciation. In particular, the Coptic regional pronunciation had a greater 
percentage of the begadkepat letters as fricatives.

4) that there were major changes in Hebrew pronunciation, much of which 
happened by the time of the Maccabbees.

Finally, this mail list is dedicated to the study of Biblical Hebrew. In view 
of the above, arguing fine points of Masoretic pronunciations won't help much 
in the stated goal. Let Peter have the last word.

Karl W. Randolph.
-- 
___________________________________________________________
Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm