Biblical Hebrew Forum

[rochelle altman <willaa AT netvision.net.il>]

Karl...
[snip]

> > You want to see the evidence? Remember, I've been collecting this stuff for
> > more than 50 years...there are hundreds of examples just from the ANE and
> > down through the 1st century BCE... when we get to CE, we get into the
> > millions.  There are more than 250,000 examples in one Late Medieval
> > cemetery -- can't use all of them now can I. You'll have to wait until I
> > finish organizing the blurry book on the subject  -- this i going to take a
> > lot of picking and choosing to fit into a single volume -- and then finish
> > writing it up to see the evidence for yourself.. I've given you a few
> > examples to look at so you get an idea.
> >
> One source stands out by its absence, namely tablets of Biblical
> period Jewish origin.

Boy, wouldn't we love to have some. We're lucky to find bits and pieces as 
it is... and every time something does turn up, it's decried as either a 
forgery or late post-exilic.Folks don't recognize a consolidated script, 
how do you expect them to recognize a consolidated text? On the latter, we 
get quellenscheidung -- as if a subject doesn't have its own vocabulary. 
But what we really have are two different traditions consolidated into one 
text... and that was not done post-exilic.That's the type of text we find 
under a consolidating monarchy. It sure isn't the first example, nor the 
last...oldest example I've run across is under Sargon I of Sumer and Akkad. 
.. as usual, he used religion.

Now, the closest thing we have to examples of the original 10C are the 
Paleo- frags among the DSS. You see, from the format of the Leviticus 
scroll, it was taken down from a wall tablet.

Point is: law codes, proclamations, and such like -- all issued under a god 
--  were displayed either on large stelae or on large tablets arranged as 
wall displays. The Egyptians did it, too.

Do recall that Moshe displays the tablets to the crowd and the text is 
pronounced out loud. SOP back then:.display, call for attention, read it 
out. Why? Because a person was only liable for breaking a law if he or she 
had heard it. And, please, don't start on this aspect: it is very well 
known and attested right on down the centuries. It's what is done with 
illiterate populations.Hear ye, hear ye.

Course, if one insists that people could just up and do things differently 
from what the general population recognizes as authoritative and still be 
accepted....

> > Incidentally, if you want to know where the double tablet comes from, look
> > at Syrian MSS, then Gothic, and then the Amianitus from the 8th CE.
> >
> > Now, shall we get back to BH?
> >
> My question about Moses was back to BH.

Not really; this list is about questions on the language


> > risa,
> > Dr. Rochelle. I. Altman
>
> By the way, where did you get the idea of sapphire cubes you mentioned
> to Yitzhak? He didn't say anything of the sort, at least not publicly,
> nor is there any Biblical Hebrew source for that.

OF course there isn't. Once again, the subject of what script and what 
material was used for the 10C has a good sized literature. Sapphire cubes 
happens to be one of them..

Now enough; people want to talk about the language, not the methods of 
putting it there or how those words would be displayed.

risa