Biblical Hebrew Forum

[AMK Judaica <amkjudaica AT hotmail.com>]

hmm. my message went throught without any paragraph breaks so i'm sending it 
again.
 
Karl, 
 
"this is an example of how grmmarians love to wax long on minutiae, while in 
the bigger picture of the language, this was added long after Biblical Hebrew 
ceased to be spoken . . ."
 
a) for those of us interested in the accuracy of the masoretic text, even 
little lines like the meteg are important. (i'm not looking to debate the 
possibility or futility of determining "the" masoretic text, but rather 
trying to convey why a little line is important to some people.)
 
b) fixing the masoretic text is a worthwhile task in its own right, but also 
note that the bible features prominently in contemporary jewish liturgy and 
hazzanim/ba'ale keri'ah (lectors) should (ideally) take the meteg into 
account when reading.
 
c) rivka's orginal question about the meteg had to do with the question of 
whether or not it has implications for the opening or closure of a syllable, 
which i suspect has to do with her interest in the kamatz vowel. so it's not 
solely about one little line, but rather another little line with a dot 
underneath as well.
 
d) vocalization and cantillation markings in general were added to the text 
long after biblical hebrew ceased to be a spoken language. so why single out 
the meteg for disregard?
 
as an aside, your comment about the insignificance of the meteg reminds me 
about a comment about the dagesh. gerson rosenzweig was an immigrant 
humorist, poet and shoe salesman (he advertised his store in the hebrew press 
under the name bet xalutz ha-na'al!) on new york's lower east side at the end 
of the 19th c.at the end of his "shirim, meshalim u-mikhtamim" (ny, 1893) he 
blamed the typsetter for any errors in the text and asked "the careful reader 
to take misplaced degeshim and place them where they are missing, and if 
there are not enough he should inform me and i will send him the missing 
degeshim. if there are extras, he may keep them as a gift."
 
kol tuv,
 
ari kinsberg 
 
> Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:58:53 -0800> From: kwrandolph AT gmail.com> To: 
> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Meteg and Shva Na/Nah> 
> > For another view on this controversy:> > I´m a little amused at the 
> amount of electronic ink metaphorically spilled> in this discussion, of a 
> symbol that does not appear on my computer when I> read Tanakh. Please 
> don´t take it personally, as in this message I have no> intention to single 
> out any individual, rather this is an example of how> grmmarians love to 
> wax long on minutiae, while in the bigger picture of the> language, this 
> was added long after Biblical Hebrew ceased to be spoken and> is sometimes 
> wrong.> > Carry on, this is just a comment from the peanut gallery.> > Karl 
> W. Randolph.> 
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