Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Bill Rea <bill.rea AT canterbury.ac.nz>]

Jim wrote:-

>If an early Hebrew author wanted to emphasize the fearsome Syrian
aspect of 
>Mt. Hermon, could that be done by using a non-standard spelling for Mt.
>Hermon?


This seems to be imposing modern ideas on ancient authors. The idea that
there is a standard spelling and you could be right or wrong in the way
a word was spelled clearly appeared when dictionaries were first
written. Prior to that, the idea of a standardized spelling is hard to
demonstrate. Because written words reflect in some way the pronunciation
there is a limit to how much variation you can get in a spelling. Trying
to read significance into variant spellings easily leads you into pure
speculation.

Bill Rea, ICT Services, University of Canterbury \_
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