Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On Thu, May 6, 2010 at 10:43 AM, James Christian wrote:

> Also, your criticism of Karl's method of not using the vowels is completely
> unwarranted. They are an addition to the text and therefore a potential
> corruption of it. Karl's method is only to be commended and, in fact, the
> Hebrews read the text in this way for thousands of years before the
> Massoretes made this change. It is only by reading the text in this way that
> you are able to engage your instincts in matters of logical disambiguation
> decisions. If you rely on the vowel pointing then you rely on many of these
> decisions having been made for you. Not an entirely scholarly approach. This
> is not to say that Karl's decisions are necessarily superior but at least
> he's made the effort of training his own instincts and this is only to be
> commended. Were I to run a Hebrew course I would teach students from the
> word go to read the text unpointed.

No, James.  We didn't read the text this way for thousands of years before the
Masoretes "made this change."  We have read the text with prior knowledge of
the intended vowels.  Whenever a scribe copied a document he was also aware
of its vocalization.  That the vocalization was not written down is
only a result of
the Hebrew writing system at that time.  However, just as professional scribes
copied the document so too professional readers learned the vocalization of a
document.  They were trained in reading and trained in the reading of
the specific
canon of holy writings.  All the Masoretes did was write down details
of the reading
system and training that has until then for over a thousand years (or
thousands as
you would have it) been developed orally.  Karl's reading shows how
dismally he failed.

This came up in a discussion recently with Randall Buth where Karl was
unable to
recognize a particular grammatical usage (the use of an infinitive as
a finite verb).  It
showed how Karl has not engaged or trained his instincts in logical
disambiguation.
When one reads the text without vowels, he is aware of less
possibilities to read
the words and hence cannot disambiguate at all.  In the rare instance those
possibilities are visible in the consonantal text he is not as likely
to recognize
them as a distinct grammatical usage.  It is no surprise that when I provided
Karl with examples of this grammatical feature in epigraphic pre-exilic Hebrew
that are visible in the consonantal text, Karl never responded.  I
don't know how
Karl reads the Hebrew.  I have my guesses.  But whatever system he is using it
is a dismal failure as far as disambiguation goes.

What I can say is that it is ridiculous for you or Karl to criticize
people for not
knowing Hebrew.  Jim has just as much right to think he knows Hebrew as you
or Karl do.

Yitzhak Sapir