Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 12:40 PM, Rolf Furuli wrote:
> Dear Yitzhak,
>
> I do not understand your question. Please rephrase it, and I will answer it.

I am using here the text of the BHQ Nehemiah.
I also looked up the relevant chapter here:
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/gopher/text/religion/biblical/parallel/19.Neh.par

Of the various verses in question, 3:14 has ybnnw, and 3:15 has ybnnw
wy+tllnw in the MT.
3:15 has no dagesh in the -y- and in the conventional ways of reading the
verbs, this would means it has a waw conjunctive rather than a waw
conversive, and should be read as imperfect, "future".
However, the verses have a formulaic construction and so we would
naturally raise the question whether the wy(myd of 3:15 is to be seen
as any different from the other wy(myd's of the chapter.
Now, in comparison with 3:12 hw) wbnwtyw we might have even been
wise enough to suggest that perhaps 3:14 hw) ybnnw is a misreading
for either h)w wbnw "he and his son", since y and w were relative similar
in the Aramaic script, and the pronominal -n- could have been added by
the "correcting" scribe, or alternatively, h)w wbnyw for similar reasons.

In reading the Septuagint, we find something very interesting:
3:14 YBN/NW =W/BN/YW    KAI\ OI( UI(OI\ AU)TOU=
3:15 YBN/NW     --- ''
3:15 W/Y+LL/NW  --- ''
That is, 3:14 is indeed read by the Septuagint as "and his sons" and
the 3:15 verbs are simply not there.
In other words, on the particular verbs that are out of place in the
conventional understanding of the verb, we have the Septuagint that
suggests some type of textual corruption.

Now, the Septuagint could be "wrong" and the MT could represent more
accurately the original author's intent.  We also have issues to consider
such as lectio difficilior.  Yet all this is besides the point.  The
very fact that
the Septuagint has alternate readings here casts doubt on the legitimacy
of these verbs as "bona fide" "conventional" "yiqtols".

We didn't even have to pick these verbs.  There are (using your numbers)
some 80000 verbs to choose from.  Why did you pick those for which the
textual witnesses cast doubt on the legitimacy of the very examples?  Why
not give an example that is so obvious and so blatant and also free of any
reasonable textual contest?  After all, there are 80000 verbs to choose
from.

Yitzhak Sapir