Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

To add to all that Randall Buth has said:

> From Genesis 2:8 we see Eden in MT as עֵדֶן however, in Greek we see Eδεμ
> (edem) thus highlighting two features.

> 2) A confusion between the similarly pronounced phones of n and m.

It probably wasn't an issue of similar pronunciation but rather of
influence from
Aramaic.  As speakers were beginning to say many of the same words in both
Hebrew and Aramaic, Hebrew borrowed words from Aramaic, sometimes
complete with their plurals (which end in -n).  This led to two
equivalent plural
by-forms -n and -m, and eventually led to even non-plural words that ended in
n/m to have by-forms.  This process began very early, in my opinion,
from the mid-
7th century BCE.  The earliest attestation of this is apparently in an
Elephantine
personal name NTWM (rather than NTWN).  This process is clearly seen in the
plural of the word MLH in Job.  MLH, which in earlier books is used only in
archaic contexts, was borrowed again due to Aramaic into non-archaic
contexts as well.  Job has the plural MLYN 13 times, but the by-form plural
MLYM 10 times.  Job also shows the n/m neutralization process underway in
normative Hebrew plurals as in BXYYN 24:22 and and )XRYN 31:10.  This
development shows just how important it is to have an understanding of
Mishnaic Hebrew for reading the Bible, because the primary audience of the
Bible read the words but understood them in Mishnaic Hebrew terms.

> 1) A confusion between aspirate p and unaspirated p (Greek uses phi).

The general transcription of consonants from Hebrew to Greek is:
emphatic k,t,(p) -> kappa, tau,(pi)
aspirated (dagesh) k,t,p -> chi,theta,phi
fricative (rafe) k,t,p -> chi,theta,phi

This is not an issue of confusion, but rather of the inability of Greek to
differentiate the two categories of aspirated and fricative letters.

Yitzhak Sapir