Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Clay:

Unlike George, I don't recommend going to the pub. But I'm tempted, 
awfully tempted!

I just worked through the verse again myself, and it gave me a 
headache. The only way that makes sense is to assume that the 
points on at least some of the words are wrong, and go from there.

KNP I read as prefixed K on the verb NWP "As presenting (putting before)"
RNNYM "shouts of joy"
N(LSH "was made merry"
)M )BRH "with its soaring feathers"
XSYDH "ostrich"
WNCH "and its pinions"

Even as I write this response to you, I'm revising what I worked 
out earlier today. What a headache!

So as I translate it now, "as presenting shouts of joy, an ostrich 
is made merry with its soaring feathers and pinions" fully 
recognizing that it is a flightless bird. I still am not totally at 
peace with this rendition, but at least it made some sense. Any 
other ideas out there?

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: "C. Stirling Bartholomew" <jacksonpollock AT earthlink.net>
>
> Of all the exegetical/textual lost causes I have run across recently nothing
> tops Job 39:13. The LXX (OG) omits the whole ostrich sequence. Theodotian
> uses three transliterations among eight words. Gordis, Habel, Dhorme, Pope
> just confirm that the dozens of solutions proposed are all
> shots-in-the-dark.
>
> Working in Attic drama (e.g. Iphigenia At Aulis), where the textual evidence
> is extremely thin, one does run into lines that offer serious resistance but
> the lexical database is huge and conjectures often give a comfortable
> feeling of high probability. I don't get that feeling working in Job 38-39.
>
> What do professional editors and interpreters of texts like Job do after
> work to get over it?
>
>
> greetings,
> Clay Bartholomew
>
> I have worked on more than my share of large scale lost causes and I thought
> that biblical philology was going to get me away from all that angst.

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