Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Louis Sorenson <llsorenson AT hotmail.com>]

I am more of a watcher of the B-Greek list.  My Hebrew is rusty - and I am 
working on refreshing it. (I'm a Greek-o-phile who knows he needs to be 
fluent in Hebrew for the LXX and NT.)  I am not looking for a beginning 
Hebrew site which will answer and post all those beginning grammar and 
philology questions - even though I struggle with those issues here and 
there. What I am looking for is an email list which will pull me into the 
Hebrew language world and help me learn and improve my Hebrew skills, and 
also let me know what many of the hot topics are in Biblical Hebrew. If I 
have a question, I would like to be able to post a question, no matter how 
"stupid" that question would be to many on the list. I'm a firm believer that 
there is no such thing as a "stupid question" -- a teacher in my past always 
used to tell me, "when you are answering a question on the test, consider me 
as intelligent but uniformed."  I understand that many people have passions 
in regards to their personal convictions on issues such as "inspiration", 
historical-critical perspectives, interest in philological versus pedagogical 
and linguistic-origins-of-Hebrew and Origins of Israel and Hebrew language 
origin topics.  

The point is that I am interested in all of these topics. What I struggle 
with is the constant drum of members wanting to dominate the list and use it 
for the propagation of their favorite pet theory.  I don't receive a digest 
(i.e. all emails in a single combined email) - I do not know if this is an 
option.  (It is on the b-Greek list; perhaps this could be an option for the 
b-Hebrew list.) It is a hassle and very irritating to have to delete 15 
emails in the same day which deal with a single pet thesis of any given 
member.  

So, "Is a new list needed?" NO. The real question is this: What do most 
members of the list expect? What are the tones and subjects and numbers of 
emails that they receive in their e-mail boxes. How many of those emails do 
they roll their eyes at, and say "not again,"  "won't this topic ever end".  

Content is the key.  If an email has content, i.e. "meat", whatever the topic 
and controversy, most members will read them and evaluate them -- which is 
the point of the List. Those who are on the borders of 'academic acceptance' 
do have valid theories - and their arguments need to be evaluated. But if the 
entire balance of the list is focused on evaluating these proposals - with no 
counterbalance, the thrust of the B-Hebrew list gets shifted from what its 
intent was (as I believe), to being the tool of those who are the most 
frequent and ardent posters. 30 emails in several days, about a controversial 
and borderline topic are too many for most members (imoho). 

I greatly appreciate those who are in academic circles and participate on 
this list. Those academics and very skilled non-academics who take an 
interest in grooming, encouraging, corralling, nudging, correcting and 
inspiring are an absolute requirement for a list such as b-Hebrew.  Those who 
do not hold PhD's in Hebrew or M.A.'s in Hebrew need you academics who 
participate in this list. It is truly a service that George Athas and Yitzhak 
Sapir provide to this group.


Louis Sorenson


> Date: Tue, 26 May 2009 05:12:55 +0200
> From: leviny1 AT mail.biu.ac.il
> To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] A new list is definitely needed
> 
> Here I must agree. Discussions do get heated and the tone does sometimes
> become less than civil. Let's all take this to heart, and try to keep our
> posts polite, even when we disagree. 
> 
> Yigal Levin
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eric Inman [mailto:eric-inman AT comcast.net] 
> Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2009 4:05 AM
> To: 'Yigal Levin'; b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Subject: RE: [b-hebrew] A new list is definitely needed
> 
> 
> Yigal et al,
> 
> I appreciate getting a clearer description of the parameters for this list.
> The only thing I question is whether or not you really have insisted that
> the discussion remain civil. The main reason I'm concerned is because, as a
> newcomer to this, I've wondered if a lot of highly qualified contributors
> might prefer not to participate in this list because of the tone of a lot of
> the posts that I've seen here. I don't plan to leave this list but I'll join
> any others that are started. My personal preference would be that everything
> could be done in this list.
> 
> Eric Inman
> 
> 
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> b-hebrew mailing list
> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
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