Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter AT qaya.org>]

On 18/11/2006 19:23, Gary Hedrick wrote:
>         This has nothing to do with race or racism.  There is no question
> that there are legitimate differences between Hebrew and Greek thought, ...

There is indeed a lot of question about this. It is methodologically 
quite wrong to assume differences of thought from differences of 
language. See more below.

> ... and
> that these differences can have a definite bearing on how we read the text
> of the Hebrew Bible.  One notable example of the difference between the two
> is in their respective conceptions of time and space.  This is explained in
> some detail in Thorleif Boman's Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek.  (It was
> written originally in German but is readily available in an English
> edition.)  In the final chapter, the author concludes that the two
> perspectives are not contradictory, but complementary.  He says it's not a
> matter of right vs. wrong because both are right (p. 208 in my paperback
> edition).  Interesting stuff.
>
>   
I don't know much about this work, but it has attracted two very bad 
"spotlight reviews" at Amazon, 
http://www.amazon.com/Hebrew-Thought-Compared-Greek-Thorleif/dp/0393005348. 
Here is one of them, apparently from a scholar called Williams at UCLA:
> This book assumes the peculiarity of the Hebrew language to make a 
> theological point. Unfortunately, the author does not make a 
> systematic analysis of either Hebrew or Greek. The arguments of the 
> book were completely demolished by James Barr (Regius Professor of 
> Hebrew at Oxford University) in his book, The Semantics of Biblical 
> Language. While I would urge everyone to study Hebrew (and Greek) 
> because it will open up new insights into the Scriptures, this facile 
> treatment of Hebrew is not really worthwhile.
These are my thoughts exactly, on the basis of what you and Karl have 
described of Boman's work. Go away and read Barr, and then reevaluate Boman.


--
Peter Kirk
E-mail:  peter AT qaya.org
Blog:    http://speakertruth.blogspot.com/
Website: http://www.qaya.org/