Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Gary Hedrick" <garyh AT cjfm.org>]

        Peter, is it your contention that there are no legitimate
differences between the ways Hebrew and Greek writers (and thinkers) in
biblical times would have expressed themselves?  I don't think anyone here
is saying we agree entirely with Borman.  I was just saying that his thesis
is an interesting one and deserves thoughtful consideration.
        The formation and formulation of Christian thought in the milieu of
the 1C Middle Eastern culture is a subject of vigorous and ongoing debate.
Cambridge U. Press has published an interesting compendium of essays (Early
Christian Thought in its Jewish Context) dealing with some of these issues.
        Peter, the negative review you cited from Amazon.com says that
Borman took this position "to make a theological point."  Is this also your
concern?  

Gary Hedrick
San Antonio, Texas USA

-----Original Message-----
From: Peter Kirk [mailto:peter AT qaya.org] 
Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2006 1:46 PM
To: Gary Hedrick
Cc: B-Hebrew List
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] "Desire of Women" in Heb. Text of Dan. 11:37

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/