Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Jack:

No one made either claim that you stated. 
That is why when Bill Rea tried to put those 
words in my mouth, I accused him of setting 
up a straw man argument (Bill, if I 
misunderstood your argument, sorry).

Let's look at English as an example. When a 
lexeme is used in a pun, does that use 
change its meaning? Or does it retain its 
meaning but its unusual use indicates that 
in this context it acts as a pun?

Just as a complex lexeme combines two words 
to make a third meaning, so an idiom must be 
taken as a whole. To repeat the example 
given before of a politician "running for" 
an office. Does the use of "run" in this 
idiom change its meaning? Or does it just 
conjure a picturesque image in mind's eye 
by use of the physical term?

(This feels like reteaching Semantics 101, 
which I thought would be unnecessary in a 
discussion of this level.)

I assume that the ancient Hebrews were just 
like modern man, also in their use and 
understanding  of language. Therefore the 
patterns of puns, idioms and other literary 
constructs are just as possible in Biblical 
Hebrew as in modern English. The only 
complicating difference is that the 
grammatical constructs from roots can 
sometimes converge, especially when using 
an unpointed text, so that one form, one 
Binyan, can have two or more roots. In those 
cases, one only needs to recognize the roots 
and comprehension often follows.

Bill, as far as specific puns you claimed to 
find, Peter already answered one as being a 
standard usage of the lexeme without needing 
to resort to understanding it as a pun, and 
the second one is an example of grammatical 
convergence of form from two different roots 
which again pretty much rules out the pun 
argument. Amos 8:1-2 has an example of a 
pun, but you didn't mention that one.

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Rea" <bsr15 AT cantsl.it.canterbury.ac.nz>
> 
> Jack asked:-
> 
> > I am curious, did I understand someone to say that Hebrew
> > words cannot have more than one meaning, hence pun and
> > double entendres are not possible?
> 
> The claim, made by Karl, is that lexemes, not individual words, have
> a single meaning. Compound lexemes have more than one word. Examples
> given previously are ``strike out'' as in baseball, and ``strike up''
> as in starting a conversation. Both are compound lexemes and have a
> meaning different from strike and out or up on their own.
> 
> I was curious as to how Karl's theory handles puns and other word
> play which generate double meanings. He doesn't think my question
> was genuine saying it sounded like a ``straw man''.  Also he did
> not deal with the specific pun I put forward. So there's nothing
> left to talk about and I'm none the wiser about how his theory
> would handle a pun.
> 
> 
> P.S. Thanks to Harold Holmyard for your helpful comments. I'll check
>       what those three authors say about Gen 30:3 and if there's anything
>       useful I'll post tomorrow. I thought you owned a copy of Alter's
>       translation and commentary so you should be able to see what he
>       thinks, if anything, before then.
> 
> Bill Rea, IT Services, University of Canterbury \_
> E-Mail bill.rea AT canterbury.ac.nz               </   New
> Phone 64-3-364-2331, Fax  64-3-364-2332       /)  Zealand
> Unix Systems Administrator                   (/'

-- 
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