Biblical Hebrew Forum

[belaga AT math.u-strasbg.fr]

Dear Yigal and Yitzhak,

Before answering to you both in detail, I would need -- and it will be  
very important for my future research projects, too -- to look into  
the references you indicate.

I really appreciate this critical dialogue and hope to be able to  
learn a lot from your sources, new for me.

Edward


> On Nov 3, 2007 6:02 PM, Edward Belaga wrote:
>
> > (2) This opinion is not universally accepted.
>
> Here you are referring to my definition of kativ and qari.  This   
> brings to mind
> what it means "universally accepted."  Now, in the synagogue, it might not
> be universally accepted that kativ and qari refer to either changes   
> in language,
> or to alternate versions.  But you are not making a synagogue drasha  
>  ("sermon").
> You are writing an article for a mathematics journal.  Readers of a   
> scientific
> mathematics journal expect you to use the common accepted findings of
> Biblical scholars in the academic community and not what is accepted in the
> synagogue.  In the academic community, the understanding of kativ and qari
> that I suggested is universally accepted.  Any other understanding has to be
> substantiated in order to be used in an academic study.
>
> I am adding here a reference to Maimon Cohen, The Kethib and Qeri System
> in the Biblical Text (Hebrew), Jerusalem: Magness Press, 2007.  I think Cohen
> takes this attempt to read different stages of Hebrew in the   
> katib/qari system
> into the extreme, but it is a reference you should at least look at.  
>   You may be
> able to get it online at www.magnesspress.co.il if it is really
> important to you.
>
> You should also be able to read at least about acrostics but maybe gematria
> too in such reference works as the Anchor Bible Dictionary.  This may give
> you a starting point as to the academic views of the relevant   
> subjects.  Yigal
> already responded to you about these secondary points in a better way than
> I could.
>
> I wanted to add that in addition to rounding, there is the issue of   
> measurement.
> It is not simple to measure a diameter of a circle and it is also hard
> to measure
> a circumference.  It must have been harder in ancient times, where there was
> no exact ruler or measuring tape, and the measuring had to be done by hand
> -- literally, hence the word ?mh "arm" as a measurement unit.  Consider how a
> person might measure the diameter of a large circular vat whose diameter is
> approximately 10 "arms."  His result is going to be approximate.  If he then
> proceeds to measure the circumference, using his arm, his result is   
> also going
> to be rather approximate.  These issues cannot be ignored when you   
> try to make
> sense of the 30/10 ratio given in the book of Kings.
>
> Yitzhak Sapir
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Edward G. Belaga
******************************************************
Institut de Recherche en Mathématique Avancée
Universite Louis Pasteur
7, rue René Descartes, 67084 Strasbourg Cedex, FRANCE
tel.: 333 90 24 02 35, FAX: 333 90 24 03 28
e-mail : edward.belaga AT math.u-strasbg.fr
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