Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Ah, Chris:

Here is where you err—Hebrew was not the mother tongue of those who invented 
the points to preserve the pronunciation tradition that they inherited. 
They had to learn Hebrew as a scholarly study, just as we.

If we take the internal datings of those books that have attributions, we 
have linguistic patterns that suggest that Hebrew had not been a native 
tongue 
(learned at a mother’s knee) for close to a millenium by the time the points 
were developed. Even those who claim later use of Hebrew as a native 
tongue recognize that Hebrew had ceased to be such at least a couple of 
centuries before the invention of the points.

Because I presently use an unpointed text, I don’t know if I follow the 
points or not. But in the past I have found instances where the points are 
clearly 
wrong, e.g. Proverbs 1:19. Futher, I noticed instances where the need for a 
Ketib/Qere correction was rendered moot by using different points (and I 
prefer to change points than the consonental text, even when that change is a 
Qere).

So I encourage you not to fear changing the points. Don’t do so willy nilly, 
disregarding tradition totally, but only after careful consideration.

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: wattswestmaas <wattswestmaas AT eircom.net>
> 
> Hallo Karl (and rest)  I agree about your statement.  Though I do not have
> enough experience to comment further either way, I would be reluctant to
> alter vowel pointing in a way that would say that I knew better than the
> very people whose language this was.
> 
> I really do not know.
> 
> regards Chris
-- 
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