Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Bill Rea <bsr15 AT cantsl.it.canterbury.ac.nz>]

Karl wrote:-

>Already, when I was in college longer ago than I care to
>admit, it was a common belief that most significant new
>discoveries were made by new comers to a field: either
>those who were just graduating and/or transferring from
>another field.

Perhaps you should question this recieved wisdom as it is certainly
wrong. It is a romantic view of how knowledge is advanced.
In Hebrew studies major discoveries, if that's the right term,
will come from long periods of hard work and analysis. If you
learn Hebrew as an adult, and that's what most non-Jews have to
do, it will take several years to become moderately fluent in
the language. Take a look at the path which has brought you to
your current, very non-standard, understanding of how the Hebrew
language works. You had to learn from Hebrew scholars who wrote
the texts and lexicons. Only after you mastered that material
were you in a position to start to question whether the lexicons
were right. You are not a case of someone popping in from another
discipline and coming up with a new discovery which the old hands
missed. You are an old hand. I dare say all on this list who have
advanced new ideas on this list about the Hebrew verbal system
are old hands in Hebrew. I don't see how it could be otherwise.

If I may digress to another field. Usually mathematics is cited as
the science which is most dominated by young people making radical
discoveries. That's not the case now if ever it was. In the last
15 years the two greatest single steps forward were made by Andrew
Wiles at age 41 and Grigori Perelmann at age 40. They weren't young
whipper-snappers working in isolation.

Bill Rea, IT Services, University of Canterbury \_
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