Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Herman Meester <crazymulgogi AT gmail.com>]

2006/2/3, Rochelle Altman <willaa AT netvision.net.il>:
> Dear Herman,
>
> >Dear Rochelle,
> >I understand what you mean, but I meant that some people like to count
> >the syllables not as the Masoretes heard them but as they were
> >supposedly "originally intended".
>
> The first error they make is to treat songs as poetry; songs are not poems.
> This is true also of hymns from Kish, Akkad, and Ugarit. These are all
> songs that have been examined as if they were poetry. They are not; there
> is an important distinction here. Songs are to be sung; poems are to be
> recited. It's not the same thing at all. Compare, say, 1Sam 15:32, which is
> a charm chant sung by Samuel, with 2Sam 19-27, which is a poem in blank
> verse, with 2Sam 22:2-51, which is a song -- the latter two Davidic.
>
> (The Davidic songs and poems [including his Psalms] are multivocal to an
> extent that we do not see again until Shakespeare. Great masters are long
> and far between -- that's why they are remembered. Davidic works are
> identifiable by intense multivocalic word play, sound play, sophisticated
> external and internal structures, and internal cross-linkages. Wheeler
> claims the marker is lyricism; that, too, but it's not a primary marker.)
>
> The second error is to  count syllables in the songs -- and they also try
> to force the Biblical songs into a 4/4 metrical scan. That's been going on
> since the 19th-century.
>
> I have a congenital aversion to being lumped with these folks even by
> implication. I work with ancient music.
>
> >The fact that for the masora a word
> >like melekh has two syllables doesn't mean that the older 'ancestor'
> >word *malk had two syllables too.
>
> I can check this against the bilingual, if you would like me to. Or, if
> you'd rather, I can check and see if there's a short article on just this
> point worth writing up..
>
> >For example, Jan Fokkelman, of whom I attended quite a few lectures in
> >the past in Holland, likes to handle biblical poetry that make. I'm
> >not sure if it's really my cup of tea, but sure he doesn't follow the
> >directions of the masora.
>
> I said MS, not edition of the MT. I start with the bilingual -- the MS that
> contains the full instructions on *how* to sing the psalm -- including
> psalm tone, psalm formula, precentor solos, and congregational responses:
> THEN I check the MT against the bilingual. Where possible, I check against
> the DSS texts. Now that photographs of the Aleppo are available on-line; I
> am checking against it, as well.
>
> One thing I have found, which should make people happy, is that the vast
> majority of philological and linguistic theories are supported by the
> bilingual and other texts What is often brought into question is the dating
> of when xyz happened. On the Old English side, some changes that are
> postulated to have been pre-historic are documented as happening during the
> historic period. For Hebrew, changes that theoretically occurred late, seem
> to have happened earlier. Not all, by any means, but enough in both cases.
>
> Overall, the concrete evidence written into the documents supports the
> theories. The one major problem is that this supporting evidence can only
> be seen in originals, not in standardized editions. On the Hebrew side,
> Torah scrolls still retain an incredible amount of ancillary information,
> even written in square script with nikud and ta'amim. Most of the nikud are
> unnecessary -- the information is already there...
>
> Never get me started on this material; I tend to run on. Sorry.

Dear Rochelle,

Never say sorry. The only people that will ever tell anything worth
remembering must have some kind of fascination with what they're
talking about - which won't always allow them to be brief. I'd be like
that on wayyiqtol and the definite article ;)
I'm very interested in what you've been telling. Have to say,
unfortunately my knowledge is limited, since I'm more into the later
Hebrew/Aramaic stuff.
Is there a good introductory book(s) or article(s) out there that you
could recommend, maybe your own work, that would introduce me into the
world of biblical Hebrew song, chant, poem, rythm, rhyme, etcetera?
And I'm not talking the "Fokkelman approach", I know that one, but I
mean yours (articles in modern Hebrew are good too BTW). Thank you for
that.

שבת שלום
Best regards,
Herman