Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

----- Original Message -----
From: "Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>
> 
> On Thursday 01 September 2005 17:35, Peter Kirk wrote:
> > On 01/09/2005 22:42, Bill Rea wrote:

> >
> > >... Several participants have run down the current
> > >system of peer-reviewed journals, calling them things like 
> > >``incestuous''.
> > >Such criticisms are just hot air. The shear volume of research output
> > >requires some mechanism to sift the wheat from the chaff.

>From those within the publish or perish racket, 
I have heard worse.

The problem is not the system, but the people 
in the system. They bring their own beliefs and 
prejudices to their gate keeping, sometimes 
keeping out valuable research while allowing in 
some mediocre at best work. The further this 
veers from hard sciences like physics and 
chemistry, the more likely to occur.


> > In Karl's
> > >case he has said that he had a chance to do a Ph.D. but is glad that
> > >he didn't. He doesn't appear to work at any place which supports
> > >research into the Hebrew language. Those are the choices he made, ...
> >
> > I don't know much about Karl's personal circumstances, but there may be
> > compelling reasons which we don't know about why he has no choice about
> > not working at such a place. One very probable one is that he probably
> > needs to earn a living, and paid positions in Hebrew research are rather
> > few. In other words, this may not be his choice at all.
> >
If I had had my choice, I would have gotten the 
PhD. But it was not to be. I would have liked 
to be a professor like my father and 
grandfather, but without a PhD that is pretty 
much out of the question.

On the other hand, there are certain advantages 
to being largely self taught. One is that I am 
not impressed by anyone else. I don't know the 
names of famous researchers so I am not in awe 
of them. As far as I am concerned, their 
theories are no better than anyone else's. 
Secondly, by having studied only Biblical 
Hebrew excepting enough Aramaic to read the 
Aramaic portions of Daniel, Ezra and the verse 
in Jeremiah, I now have a feel as to how the 
language works. Often I can't give detailed 
grammatical rules, but I know how the language 
acts. Had I had the opportunity to study for 
the PhD, I was looking forward to studying 
Aramaic, Ugaritic, Mishnaic and even modern 
Hebrew, but I now realize that my "feel" for 
the language would have been corrupted by the 
other similar languages.

For example, my feel for English, my mother 
tongue, has been corrupted by German, my German 
by Norwegian, my Norwegian by .... Because they 
have similar grammar, similar vocabulary, even 
similar expressions, I sometimes find myself 
making constructs from one language in another 
where it is not appropriate. But my Cantonese, 
other than making new lexemes by combining old 
ones, doesn't resemble any of them, therefore 
the propensity to bring in constructs from 
other languages is much, much reduced. While 
even my understanding of koiné Greek is 
influenced by other indo-european languages, 
that is not true of Biblical Hebrew.

To give a practical example, when I looked at 
the "Joash stone" now known as a forgery, I 
noticed several things that just didn't "feel 
right". But the "experts", unnamed in the news 
articles I read, didn't notice any of them. 
Instead the published reports mentioned that 
they focused on the use of LBDQ near the bottom 
of the stone, saying that it stuck out like a 
sore thumb as a modern usage. I was puzzled as 
that was one that I missed, as it is so used in 
2 Chronicles 34:10 and possibly also in 2 Kings 
12:8 (depending on how one points it). I now 
conclude that my disappointment at not being 
able to get a PhD has an upside as well.

I suspect that the research that I have done in 
Biblical Hebrew vocabulary is pretty much as 
much as had I gotten a PhD.

>
> Look at this forum.  We have folks of every level of knowledge from the
> newborn to the lifetime-fluent, and we all talk to each other, share ideas
> and exchange information and topics.  It really doesn't matter that X has a
> Ph.D. and Y doesn't, everybody has an equal voice here.  We may occasionally
> get into some profound disagreements - Peter and I do that regularly :-)  
> but
> still, we all listen to each other and interact with each other more or less
> as equals.  That's why I tend to call the Internet "the great equalizer."
> Anybody can post their ideas - respectfully, of course - in a forum like
> this, and anybody can post their ideas - respectfully or otherwise - on the
> Web.  Because of this Great Equalizer, anyone is free and able to examine 
> and
> evaluate those ideas, some of which, such as Karl's, might never see the
> light of day in the traditional forums.  Whether one agrees with Karl, or
> Rolf, or me, or anybody else, or not, we get to voice our thoughts and
> interact with some major players.  I can't speak for anybody else, but I 
> love
> that.
>
Agreed, a real advantage to the internet. But I 
suspect the internet is acting like a little 
wilder example of journals over a century ago, 
when there were far fewer PhDs trying to 
publish, so that anyone who had genuinely 
discovered something could get published.

>
>
> --
> Dave Washburn
> http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
> "Maybe I'll trade it for a new hat."

Karl W. Randolph.

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