Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rochelle Altman <willaa AT netvision.net.il>]

At 01:20 PM 2/10/2006, Peter Kirk wrote:
[snip]

> > > because Shakespeare's first edition printers and Samuel Johnson had used 
> > > them. (I don't care what was written in a manuscript by the relatively 
> > > uneducated Shakespeare, who couldn't even spell his own name consistently;
> >
> > You're doing it again. And while I realize it was Sapir who brought up 
> > Shakespeare... and as there is only one folio that may have S's 
> > holograph.. but a number of documents that have his signature... And that 
> > documents signed in London have a different phonetic spelling from 
> > documents signed in Stratford.... Isn't that your point re: dialectic 
> > differences??? .
>
> Well, if you want to do what you objected to me doing, raise an aside to a 
> main point:

This IS the main point: orthographic variations and what they may or may 
not indicate..

One last try to get this across.

What is demonstrated in 15th and 16th-century original documents is 
relevant to the arguments about orthographic variations between pre-exilic 
and Biblical Hebrew:

1a)     We are talking about phonetic writing.
1b)     Phonetic writing means that people/scribes wrote what they heard.

2)      The ancient materials include dictated and copied documents.

3)      The most common ancient inscriptions are either covenantal or textual.

4a)     Vows are covenants between a person and a god.
4b)      Any type of vow was written personally by the person making the 
vow and in his/her own dialect.

5a)     Textual inscriptions were not written down from a copy.
5b)     The text was dictated to the stone scribe who wrote it down.
5c)     The stone scribe wrote what he heard in his own dialect.

The Siloam inscription was dictated to a stone scribe..

And if anyone want to see how this works, John DeFrancis' Visible Speech is 
in the bib.
Examples of scribes writing what they hear in their own dialects is right 
in the frontipiece..

6a)     Copied texts were, as indicated, copied from an existing document.
6b)     The MT was copied.
6c)     The orthographic variations may have been in the originals or they 
may have been from a reform of the orthographic system.

We have one part of Paleo-Lev sufficient to use to check against the same 
portion in the MT to see if that helps determine which is the case....

7a)     One other type of dictated document is relevant: bookshop copies 
written by teams of scribes.
7b)     A lector dictated the text.
7c)     The team of scribes wrote what they heard.
7d)     Scribes at a bookshop were trained to write in one dialect.

Examples of bookshop products may be found among the DSS.

[snip]

Please do not expect to answer questions about orthography and dialects of 
phonetic writing from printed documents. .It can't be done.

There is no point in answering the rest of this.
> --
> Peter Kirk
> peter AT qaya.org (personal)
> peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
> http://www.qaya.org/

Either you understand now or you don't. I will not answer again.

Risa