Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yigal Levin <leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il>]

It's a matter of convention. Academic Bible scholars usually follow the 
"Christian" tradition of transliterating a "soft" or undotted Hebrew Pe as 
"ph", since in Greek it was rendered with a Phi. Jewish scholars dealing 
with rabbinic literature (such as the Talmud), as well as most modern 
Israelis, prefer "f". I spell my son's name "Asaph" in English, while most 
Israelis with the same name would write "Assaf".

Yigal Levin

----- Original Message ----- 



> On Thu, Jan 03, 2008 at 05:31:39PM -0500, Oun Kwon wrote:
> > As written in English, soferim and sopherim are from the same Hebrew 
> > word, I
> > believe.
> >
> > I am a little confused though, since when I google it, each does give off
> > different listing. Basically soferim = something of Talmud; whereas 
> > sopherim
> > = scribes. On the other hand the singular sofer and sopher seems same.
> >
> > I hope I am not making a fool myself. Can you help clear my ignorance in
> > Hebrew?
> >
> > Thank you. And Happy New Year.
>
> To my knowledge there is no difference in those terms (even i hebrew 
> not!).
>
> Petr Tomasek