Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On Tue, Jan 20, 2009 at 12:19 AM, George Athas wrote:

> (2) It is possible that a scribe writing at a fairly late date could 
> successfully emulate earlier styles.
> Yea, verily, perchance the scribe doth immitate olde conducts.

Dear George,

Conduct as a noun is first recorded in the late 17th century:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=conduct
By that time, does had largely displaced doth:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=do
This is not to say that an author would not have used both.  But it is
unlikely.  For the more likely
it was for an author to use "conduct" as a noun (as time passed after
1673), the more unlikely it was
for an author to use "doth" instead of "does."  This in an attempt to
emulate a short sentence in
language dated no more than 350 or so years ago, with the aid of
modern linguistic knowledge, and
after the printing press had made it possible for source materials to
be much more readily available.

Yitzhak Sapir