Biblical Hebrew Forum

[David Kummerow <farmerjoeblo AT hotmail.com>]

Isaac,

As always, your postings are full of mumbo-jumbo to everyone else but 
yourself. You use phrases like "it stands to reason" when it is plainly 
anything but reasonable to anyone else.

As I've pointed out in then past, your error relates specifically to not 
understanding phonemics, even though you set out in your enterprise 
thinking you do. Your end conclusions are directly related and traceable 
to this mistake. Statements about pronominal compounding are 
linguistically a joke, and have been proven again and again to be wrong, 
yet you still continue to put forth this view as if it is fact. Simply, 
no one before you has made such radical claims because no one else has 
made such a slip-up with linguistics before. So it "stands to reason" 
why your pseudo-etymological theorising is not being taken seriously by 
anyone else -- and why you couldn't come up with the names of those 
agreeing with you when pressed by George.

My sincerely hope is that you will come to your senses, drop your 
theory, and put this limitless energy for the language which you seem to 
have to more fruitful research. Semantic analysis of lexemes is still 
very much needed, but valuable research of this kind isn't along the 
lines of what you currently promote.

Regards,
David Kummerow.


George,

1. Your statement to the effect that my theory on the composition of
the Hebrew root is wrong because it "is not supported by anyone else
I know" is, I am sorry to say, irrelevant to the issue. Sorry to say,
but it smacks of psychological warfare.
2. I have to reject also your next claim to the effect that it "does
not seem to appreciate the way Semitic languages work". I am terribly
sorry, but I refuse to take it for granted that you have the ultimate
knowledge of "the way Semitic languages work".
3. There is nothing inherently contradictory in thinking that the
Hebrew root is a composition. It stands to reason that the Hebrew tri-
literal root did not jump into being wholly formed. In fact many
basic Hebrew words are of a single-consonant root, to wit: )EL ---
root L, )AB --- root B, )EM --- root M, )AX ---root X, RA( --- root R.
4. Plurality is such an important part of reality that it stands to
reason that the ancients, even the ancient-ancients, had a word for
it. I think it is AR or RA, and is still present in the Hebrew
language in compounds. Here is how I analyze the word RABIM. It is
the composition RA-AB-IM, where RA is for aggregation, AB is for
bigness, and IM is the personal pronoun HEM, 'they', namely, RABIM =
aggregated-big-they.
5. I am really at a loss to understand what you mean by "Verification
here does not mean proof".
6. I do not see anything inherently wrong with what you call "your
reasoning is entirely circular." You study the Hebrew language very
carefully, You form in you mind a theory about its inherent
structure, and then you use your theory to study it still further.
Isn't this what a scientific theory is all about?
7. Now specifically to MIDBAR, there is no doubt in my mind that it
is a variant of MICBAR, 'accumulation'. To what accumulation the
ancients referred here is not revealed to us. I see that BDB,
following Gesenius, thinks it is "a tract of land used for pasturage
of flocks and herds", namely it is a MICBAR of sheep. How come there
is a MIDBAR, 'wilderness', and a MIDBAR, 'mouth', he does not explain
to us (I also think it is not 'mouth', but let this be).
So following through on my thinking that MIDBAR = MICBAR I am saying
it is not in reference to sheep and goats. Hebrew does not call river
the abode of fishes, nor lake the abode of ducks, nor mountain the
abode of eagles. So what else is accumulated there? I say sand, dirt
and stones, in agreement with the Mishnaic ZIBURIT, 'useless land'.

Isaac Fried