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  • From: "Heard, Christopher" <Christopher.Heard AT pepperdine.edu>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] karu or ka'ari (Ps 22:16) ?
  • Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2005 08:13:28 -0700

Hey all,

On Apr 25, 2005, at 8:09 PM, Steve Miller wrote:

>The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, by Abegg, Flint & Ulrich says on page 519
>regarding Ps 22:16: 'Among the scrolls the reading in question is found
>only
>in the Psalms scroll found at Nahal Hever (abbreviated 5/6HevPs), which
>reads "They have pierced my hands and my feet"!'
>
>
Again, just to be precise: 5/6HevPs does not, and cannot, read "they have
pierced my hands and my feet," because it is not written in English.
According to the photograph, it reads כארו = K)RW. But to make the next jump
to saying that it reads "they pierced" obscures a several-step process that
requires at least the following steps, if not more:

(1) establishing that this word כארו is in fact an instance of a verb
spelled כרה/KRH and not some other word;

(2) explaining the intrusive 'aleph--which is probably a simple explanation,
but it is a departure from the normal spelling of כרה/KRH, which is a
necessary step to accomplishing #1;

(3) given the success of ##1-2, that this כרה/KRH is an instance of KRH I
"to dig" rather than another verb spelled identically;

(4) given the success of ##1-3, justifying the translation of KRH I as "to
pierce," which in my mind is very difficult to do.

I do apologize if this post is overly pedantic. However, since the issue in
interpreting Psalm 22:16 is not just figuring out whether we have here a
preposition + noun or a verb, but also determining, if it is a verb, what
verb it is and what semantic range that verb occupies, to say that a Hebrew
manuscript "reads X," where X is a string of English words, short-circuits
the interpretive process.

Chris H.
--
R. Christopher Heard
Assistant Professor of Religion
Pepperdine University
Malibu, California 90263-4352
http://faculty.pepperdine.edu/cheard
http://www.iTanakh.org
http://www.semioticsandexegesis.info




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