Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dora Smith" <villandra AT austin.rr.com>]

This appears to be an interesting question.

A liberal analysis argued that ish or 'iysh is used to mean both man and
woman, as in laws forbidding murder and that sort of thing.

That is what it would mean now - but, for instance, the Deuteronomic law
code treated women as chattal capable only of being stolen or used without
permission.   Not people with minds and will to do wrong.   DID laws that
used the term 'iysh' include both men and women by that term?

Yours,
Dora Smith
Austin, Texas
villandra AT austin.rr.com
----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Kirk" <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
To: "Uri Hurwitz" <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>
Cc: "b-hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, February 28, 2005 11:16 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] 'iysh and zakar


> On 28/02/2005 16:47, Uri Hurwitz wrote:
>
> >       Well, does the English word "man" refer to the masculine gender,
> > as one would think, or really to both masculine and feminie? ...
>
>
> In my dialect and that of most British speakers today, to the masculine
> only. But I take your point that in many languages there is a tendency
> for words for "man" etc to shift between male-only and gender generic
> reference.
>
> > ... The term "mankind" or the expression "everyman" does refer
> > genrally to both sexes. ...
>
>
> Perhaps, but these words are obsolescent, not least because they are
> offensive to 50% of the population.
>
> > ...   Which raises a question about your examples: what conclusions
> > about a rule can one derive from the exceptions?
> >
>
> Good question. But Yigal wrote ""Ish" means "man" - an adult male ... It
> never means "man and woman"." Well, it takes only one exception to
> overturn a "never". Anyway, the "exceptions" I quoted are by no means
> unique, it is regular usage for 'ish, especially repeated as 'ish 'ish,
> to mean "each" in a gender neutral way.
>
> --
> Peter Kirk
> peter AT qaya.org (personal)
> peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
> http://www.qaya.org/
>
>
>
> --
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 266.5.1 - Release Date: 27/02/2005
>
> _______________________________________________
> b-hebrew mailing list
> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew