Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George F Somsel <gfsomsel AT juno.com>]

On Sat, 03 Sep 2005 09:12:18 -0500 "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
writes:
> 
> ----- 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.
> 
_____________

In other words, the grapes were probably sour anyway.

george
gfsomsel
___________