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  • From: dwashbur AT nyx.net
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Where Was Jacob's Ladder?
  • Date: Thu, 08 Nov 2007 19:10:48 -0800



On 8 Nov 2007 at 15:24, JimStinehart AT aol.com wrote:

>
> Dave Washburn:
> You wrote: "If we follow the Masoretic pointing, it actually says he
> 'lighted upon THE place', because it includes the definite article. So,
> 'the'
> place."
> Maybe I'm beginning to understand now what's going on here.
> 1. I myself see the Masoretic pointing system as not having been invented
> until about 2,000 years after the composition of the Patriarchal
> narratives.

Nobody I know of questions the idea that the system itself was invented in
medieval times.
But it's not as though they also invented the pronunciation of the text; they
codified what
had been passed down to them. If you check the archives, you'll see that
we've had this
discussion here before. Most of us agree that, while there are clear
problems with some of
the masoretic material, it's generally sound.

> I myself never follow the Masoretic pointing system in interpreting the
> Patriarchal narratives. But maybe that's why I see this verse differently
> than
> other analysts.
> 2. If we ignore the Masoretic pointing, is my proposed translation
> acceptable?
> "And departed Jacob from Beersheba, and went toward Harran, and lighted
> upon
> a place, staying all night there, because went down the sun...."
> On my view, it's not right to translate "a place" here as "a certain
> place",
> as is so often done.

But with or without the pointing, that's what the Hebrew means. See the
grammars.

As I view it, Jacob stopped where he did solely
> because the sun was setting, and he knew he could not travel after dark.
> This was
> Jacob's first night on the road, in my view. In my view, there was
> nothing
> special about the place at all, except that it was where Jacob happened to
> be
> when the sun started to set on Jacob's first night of his long trip to
> Harran.
> 3. Is your view of the case, which differs dramatically from mine,
> dependent
> on the medieval Masoretic pointing? You are seeing Jacob as coming to a
> particular place, "a certain place", "the place", that is, where Abraham
> had
> built an altar to YHWH in chapter 12 of Genesis, and where Abraham and Lot
> had
> stood when they were deciding where each man would go in chapter 13 of
> Genesis.

Exactly where did I say anything like this? I have never even hinted that it
was the same
place Abraham went, and I frankly don't appreciate you putting such a
cockamamey idea
into my mouth. You have a serious problem with reading things into other
things, friend.

Dave Washburn
Why do it right when you can do it again?




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