Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 1/28/07, Yitzhak Sapir wrote:
> On 1/28/07, Uri Hurwitz wrote:
> >   Dear Yitzhak,
> >
> >     Don't you think that knowledge of Egyptian of that period  is sine qua
> >     non for any   discussion of Steiner's paper or its refutatiom?
>
> If I did, I wouldn't be discussing it with you.
>
> Don't you think knowledge of Hebrew of the modern period is sine qua non for
> any discussion of Steiner's paper?

I want to rephrase this.

I do not think that one should uncritically accept the validity of Schneider's
arguments because one is not familiar with Early Egyptian.

I do not think that one should uncritically deny the validity of Schneider's
arguments because it appears Schneider did not read much more than the
accompanying handouts of Steiner's speech.

I think one should critically evaluate both Steiner's and Schneider's 
arguments.

In order to evaluate Schneider's arguments based on Early Egyptian phonology,
one needs to have some independent source of knowledge about Early Egyptian
phonology.  This is precisely why I keep around Loprieno's article.

I think my thoughts and comments regarding the alleged refutation speak for
themselves.  For the record, I do not think that Thomas Schneider is any less
of a scholar than Richard Steiner, Antonio Loprieno, Robert Woodhouse or 
Robert
Ritner.  As far as I am concerned, they are all important scholars.  One of 
the
reason I posted on ANE-2 is because many Egyptologists, Semitists, and other
linguists are subscribed to the list.  While I was not aware of it at the 
time I
posted my comments, this apparently includes Thomas Schneider.

Yitzhak Sapir