Biblical Hebrew Forum

["K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Dr. Joel is right.

When looking at a photo of the "calendar", one can see that there are
no division markers between words except for two lines before "month".
Further, it is widely recognized that this was written by a child,
possibly as young as six or seven, who may not have had a perfect
command of Biblical Hebrew.

In view of the above, are the waws unattested elsewhere dual markers,
or attested elsewhere prefixed "and"s which would better be translated
in English as "that there is"?

Karl W. Randolph.

On 10/24/07, joel AT exc.com <joel AT exc.com> 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."
>
> -Joel
>
>
> Joel M. Hoffman, PhD
> http://www.lashon.net/JMH
> http://caje33.lashon.net