Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Heard, Christopher" <Christopher.Heard AT pepperdine.edu>]

On Jul 29, 2005, at 11:28 AM, Read, James C wrote:

> Have you read Deouteronomy 31:9 closely?
> What did he write?
> The law???
> How do you say 'law' in hebrew?
> Isn't it something like 'torah'?
> And the name of the book attributed to Moshe?
> The torah???

> My! What an amazing coincidence!!!



There is no warrant either for your sarcasm, or for assuming that the
phrase התורה הזאת [HTWRH HZ(T, "this law"] refers to the canonical Torah
as a whole. In order to establish that, one would have to
establish--through actual historical argumentation, not merely verbal
"coincidences" (though a non-random and non-trivial coincidence, to be
sure)--that the author of Deut 31:9 intended to use the word תורה in
just that fashion.

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