Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

On 10/24/07, Joel M. Hoffman wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Regarding the many recent postings about the Gezer calendar, I think
> it's worth pointing out that the traditional translation is, at best,
> speculative. In my opinion, it is largely unfounded, and even the
> designation "calendar" should be considered tentative.  Just by way of
> example, the translation distributed at Tel Gezer assumes that the
> various VAVs (frequently assumed to be otherwise unattested dual
> markers) are not suffixes at all but rather prefix VAVs meaning "and."

Are you saying that a leaflet distributed to tourists reads the vavs as
"and"?  Then it might more reasonably explained that whoever printed
it simply has no idea what the text really says and translated it the
best he could using Modern Hebrew.  But it is really not anything one
can count on.  Who translated it this way?  What are his credentials?
And was it published appropriately in scholarly literature?

Yitzhak Sapir