Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Harold:

Again you defend tradition against a boor who knows neither tradition nor
translation.

How many times have I said that you could present as many translations as
you want, but if you don't back it up with analysis from the Hebrew text,
that it means nothing to me? Quite simply, I say that translation is wrong.

As far as scribal amendations, you have given me references to seven, only
two of which I recognize what the claimed original text was. Is there a list
of all the scribal amendations and how they changed the text?

The scribal amendations listed by the Masoretes are at least recognition of
an original text. But what evidence do you have of scribal amendation for
the four instances in these two first chapters of Job? Is it simply saying
that since a few were known, that therefore these also ought to have been?
If a translation can be changed everytime someone has trouble understanding
the text, how trustworthy is any translation?

While it is true that I do not hold the Masoretic points in very high
regard, that is not true of the consonantal text. I want to see good
evidence before entertaining any change of the text. An admission that a
change had been made (scribal amendation) counts, a varient reading from a
different manuscript counts, but very little else. I reject even most of the
Qere readings in the Ketib/Qere pairs.

Which brings me back to Job: when checking against other uses of )M L) and
(L PNY, I understand the passage as meaning that if God didn't act in such a
way so as to cause Job harm, that Job would continue to praise God.

Karl W. Randolph.