Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Vadim Cherny" <VadimCherny AT mail.ru>]

>> Unvowelized text is not a "text" in any regular sense. Anything one
wishes
> could be read into it.

> For that matter, you can act like Humpty Dumpty in "Alice through the
Looking Glass" and read anything into the pointed text as well. In fact,
that is one of my complaints against Gesenius and his followers, is that
they at times did exactly that.

But then, a fortiori, your preferred consonantal reading is still more
ambiguous.

> Your two examples below, "bemotaw" and "brsht" you don't even have the
consonental text correct.

Come on, it's just casual transliteration

>> > the Masoretic pointing not as authoratitive in an analysis of the text
as
> the consonants.
>
>> This is meaningless. The MT is a sub-class of consonantal Tanakh. A
> sub-class cannot be less authoritative than its class.
>
> The MT is a superset of the consonental text, in that it adds the points
which did not exist before. It is that addition that I do not consider
authoritive.

No, subset. The MT is "one" way of vowelization of the consonantal text.

>> > I find it hard to accept the concept that Hebrew was heard only while
> davening during the Masoretic period: wasn't there anyone who spoke
Hebrew,
> albeit only as a "scholarly" language (in the same manner as Latin)?
>
>> No, there was not.

> How do you know? They didn't even speak Hebrew when quoting the text in
discussions? Do you see why I have difficulty accepting your theory?

Talmud is in Aramaic

>> The contemporary documents are in Aramaic.

> So? How does that preclude scholars learning to speak Hebrew, if they so
wanted?

You argue ex nihilo. How could anyone disprove you?

> I agree with Peter that this pronunciation reflects a spoken pronunciation
as well. Or is your theory that some of what we consider pronunciation
points were really unrecognized cantillation points?

All the Masoretic points were intended for singing. The vowels, too.
Take one example of tzere in hitpael. Gemination (dagesh hazak) is clearly
post-tonic. Another evidence of penultimate stress is dagesh kal in the
first radical: dagesh kal appears only on uptone, in accented syllable;
dagesh kal is phonetically unneeded in unaccented syllables.
But how is the (very long) tzere in hitpael unaccented, in super-heavy
(geminated) syllable? Ashkenazi pronounciation of it is either segol or
apostrophe, Sephards made it accented (at the expense of losing gemination
in speech). How come the Masoretes heard unaccented tzere in super-heavy
syllable? This is only possible if they were singing.
Detailed vowel signs are not needed in speech. Indeed, the Masoretic
distinctions of vowel length were lost in speech. Such detalization of
vowels is only needed for singing.
Again, I could point to the fact that no, just no language has dagesh kal.
The Masoretes could only hear it in singing.

> Come to think of it, you are arguing that the pronunciations at the time
of the Masoretes was different than during Biblical times. If your argument
is true, that would make the points of little value for the determination of
meaning.

The pronounciation of English "i" changed. Yet, we can read Shakespeare.

> Finally, modern Israeli Hebrew is written without points, yet how many
sentences can be read in multiple ways? Any? The same is true of Biblical
Hebrew.

Not just any, but many. Long sentences, clear topics of newspapers naturally
leave less latitude than the biblical text.

Vadim Cherny