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  • From: "K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
  • To: b-hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] NXM
  • Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 05:30:53 -0700

David:
We'll have to agree to disagree.

By "text" I understand in this case to be:

ונחמתי

Like you, have the text dictate to me what it says before making any changes
to it, which includes rejecting most of the emendations to the text dictated
to you by the Masoretic tradition's kethib/qere system. But it does allow
for textual criticism of the Masoretic text, such as where a bit of text
from Nachal Hever backed up by the LXX and grammatical analysis indicates
two copyist mistakes in Psalm 22:17 and 18 (16 and 17 in English).

But we agree that in this verse that NXMTY refers to the action of Job
being consoled, so whether it is a verb or a noun makes almost no difference
in the meaning imparted. That is not always so, but in this case it makes
little difference.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

Yours,
Karl W. Randolph.

On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 11:58 PM, David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>
wrote:

> By "text" I take it we are referring to the Masoretic text, which reads:
>
> וְנִחַמְתִּי
>
> The form can either be a piel or a niphal, not a qal or a noun.
>
> Like I said before, I would rather the text dictate what it says than
> repointing it to what I think it should say.
>
> Regards,
> David Kummerow.
>
>
> > David:
> > Step one, before we go any further, what is the text?
> >
> > I accept only the consonantal text as authoritative. The Masoretic
> points
> > are not authoritative. They represent an ancient tradition that is
> pretty
> > good and concerning which I recommend changing only where there are
> > questions, but not infallible. Therefore, I do not see repointing as
> > emendation. But the consonantal text is sacrosanct, i.e. there had be
> very
> > good evidence that it had been corrupted by copyist error, best where
> there
> > are textual variants to back up the evidence. Even in most cases where
> > there
> > are kethib/qere differences, I prefer the kethib.
> >
> > Because I don't have the points, I am very dependent on the context to
> > indicate the best reading. Most of the time it's obvious. Occasionally
> > there
> > are cases like this verse, where WNXMTY can be a qal, niphal, piel or
> from
> > the noun NXMH without emending the text. My practice is then to look for
> > the
> > meaning that best fits the context.
> >
> > So what is the text?
> >
> > It appears that at least one of your points depends on the answer to
> this
> > question. We may need to agree to disagree.
> >
> > Karl W. Randolph.
> >
>



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