Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Herman Meester <crazymulgogi AT gmail.com>]

2005/11/28, David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>:
>
> [snip]
>
> > There I can only say that you are right.
> > However, if people write archaically, as long as they copy their
> > examples well, the results we get from using that material won't be
> > spoiled.
> > We have to be wary of archaisms only in syntax, I think: usually,
> > words and spelling can be "archaised" without errors, but syntax can
> > never be "copied" without errors.
> > It's an interesting problem. Are there some notorious passages in the
> > mentioned corpus where people say it is archaic artificially? I admit
> > I never really studied this.
> > Regards
> > Herman
> >
>
> Hi Herman,
>
> But we expect that students can reproduce Hebrew in exams, esp. if we
> test on English to Hebrew. Some bright students can get 100%, so how
> about scribes etc?

I guess there are bright people all over, David, but imagine you read
a lot of Shakespeare and you decide to write some Shakespearean stuff
of your own (a new composition). It's easy to reproduce the
morphology, the spelling, the words, but it's very difficult to get
the syntax perfect:
In your fake Shakespeare text, certain structures will easily end up,
that look perfect English, but further research shows it was unknown
in Shakespeare's days.
I don't say it's impossible, but it's near. I for myself could fake
17th century words and spelling, but I have no idea how the syntax
really works in detail.
best regards
Herman