Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Kevin Riley" <klriley AT alphalink.com.au>]

Jim,

I am not sure you can claim this as anything more than circumstantial
evidence.  It is obvious reading Fitzgerald's article that there are
significant Hebrew scholars who disagree with his position.  He also limits
the use of these words to poetry.  Yes, it is evidence of the interchange of
L and R *in some words*, and that difference is *probably* dialectal.  If
your theory rested on a number of solid pillars, using this piece of
evidence would not matter.  As most of your evidence is controversial, you
really need to find some good, solid, widely accepted evidence to balance
out the controversial evidence if you want to be taken seriously.  You need
to explain why a process that seems to apply only to poetry - and Hebrew is
certainly far from unique in this respect - should occur in prose.  You
cannot use Egyptian - which consistently represents both R and L by R - as
evidence that Hebrew had a dialectal form with L in any particular word.  I
also see no evidence that dialects consistently confused or reversed R and L
 but that R L and N interchange in what appears to be a relatively small
number of words. You are making a mistake that a number of people make in
looking at the Bible: X *can* mean Y, therefore X *must* mean Y in this case
 You need evidence that it does.  Where is the evidence from Semitic? 
Egyptian is ambiguous, but just one example where R and L interchange in
your word would add weight to your argument.  Do not equate an interchange
with confusion.  The majority of words seem to have had L or R consistently.
 There are other languages with the same sort of interchange, but native
speakers do not confuse the sounds, they just accept that some speakers use
one sound and some another *in a restricted set of words*. You need to find
an example where XBR = XBL =  )BL, and also to persuade someone that 'aleph
is prosthetic so that they could be = BR.  You are asking us to accept a
conclusion based on a number of questionable if...then statements.

Jim, I read a lot of reasonably complicated papers, and even experts who are
almost canonised in my field indulge in this process of "If X=Y and A=B, and
if we were to accept that Z may be true..then this answer follows logically"
at times.  But they do so in terms of lightly held "what if this were true"
speculation.  You are solidly committed to your conclusions.  That makes it
very difficult to get you to see how unlikely your ideas are at times.  You
have so far failed to take the suggestion, but the only way to test your
theory is to set it out logically, step by step, and then let people who are
experts in Semitic languages, history, etc comment on it.  You won't be the
first person on this list to have had cherished ideas destroyed by criticism
that make your ideas no longer tenable.  But there is something wonderful
about arriving at a conclusion that convinces others, even if you have to
give up some amazing ideas that suffer from no defect other than being wrong
  If you really want to know if your theory stands up, then set it out and
see how much of it survives.

Kevin Riley
 
-------Original Message------- 
 
From: JimStinehart AT aol.com 
Date: 21/02/2009 12:46:22 PM 

 
Kevin Riley: 
 
You wrote: “Where is the evidence that L and R interchange within West
Semitic?” 
 
I think you must have missed item #2 of my prior post. I will set it forth
again. If I’m wrong about this, please let me know, because it’s very
important to my theory of the case. 
 
“2. Within Biblical Hebrew 
 
A resh/R in the Bronze Age sometimes softened to a lamed/L by the Late
Bronze 
Age or the Iron Age. Also, in the Bronze Age and Iron Age some dialects may 
Have said resh/R while other dialects said lamed/L, and vice versa, even 
Though they were the same words. 
 
Even within the Bible itself, there is sometimes a de facto 
Interchangeability of resh/R and lamed/L, reflecting that phenomenon. 
 
(a) In connection with Isaiah 13: 22, Gesenius remarks: “the letter resh 
[R] being softened into lamed [L] as is frequently the case.” The most
famous 
Biblical example of this phenomenon is Isaiah 13: 22, where the two
underlying 
Basic words, one spelled with a lamed/L and one spelled with a resh/R, are
as 
Follows: aleph-lamed-mem-nun/aLman = forsaken; aleph-resh-mem-vav-nun/aRman 
= palace. At Isaiah 13: 22, we see a feminine plural form, spelled with a 
Lamed/L: aleph-lamed-mem-nun-vav-tav. But although the lamed/L would
normally 
Indicate “forsaken”, here this word is often taken to mean “palaces”, as if 
The second letter was resh/R. Or possibly there is a double meaning here, so

That the word in context means “forsaken palaces”. Gesenius further notes in

This context: “I.q. Aleph-resh-mem-nun-tav (which is itself the reading of 
Some copies)”. 
 
(b) Four more examples like this, with lamed/L being interchangeable with 
Resh/R in Biblical Hebrew in certain contexts, are set forth by Aloysius 
Fitzgerald in “The Interchange of L, N, and R in Biblical Hebrew”, in
Journal of 
Biblical Literature, Vol. 97, No. 4 (Dec, 1978), PP. 481-488. 
 
(I) At Job 6: 15-17, “understand… ayin-lm here as a dialectal form of 
Ayin-rm”. At p. 483. Ayin-resh-mem means “heaped”. Ayin-lamed-resh, by 
Contrast, “denotes ‘hidden from the mind so that one is unaware of,
unconcerned about 
An idea, activities, a situation or the like.’ The verb is never used of a 
Physical thing being hidden from the eyes of a beholder.” At p. 483. Here, 
The snow is “heaped up”, rather than the snow being “unaware” of some “ 
Situation”, or someone being “unaware” of the “situation” regarding the snow
 This 
Is not a “mistake” in the text, but rather the poet is deliberately using 
Ayin-lm as a dialectal form of ayin-rm. “The poet used this dialectal form 
Because it fit the alliterative pattern of the colon l,l,l, which answers
the 
Q,r,q,r pattern of the first colon.” At p. 485. 
 
(ii) “The second instance, confirmatory of the first, of this interchange 
[of lamed/L with resh/R] in Job 6 is found in v 25: …Here nmrsw = nmlsw….”
At 
P. 485. 
 
(iii) At Psalms 37: 34b-35, “MT-ayin-Rh [should be] understood as dialectal 
MT-ayin-lh.” At p. 486. 
 
(iv) “There may be another instance of r for l in the same verse, once again

For the sake of alliteration. …Ayin-rys = ayin-lys in Ps 37: 35….” At p. 
486. 
 
The scholarly explanation of Aloysius Fitzgerald of this phenomenon of
resh/R 
And lamed/L sometimes being interchangeable in Biblical Hebrew is as follows
 
Regarding an interchange of resh/R and lamed/L in Biblical Hebrew, this is 
An “interchange of consonants in poetic texts…. [W]hat the poet is doing is 
Using a dialectal form that fits better the sound-patterning of his line.”
At 
P. 481. This analysis of “using a dialectal form” presupposes that some west

Semitic speakers used a resh/R, where other west Semitic speakers used a 
Lamed/L for the same word. 
 
These examples show that even within the Bible itself, resh/R and lamed/L
are 
sometimes interchangeable.” 
 
 
Jim Stinehart 
 
 
 
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