Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Christian <jc.bhebrew AT googlemail.com>]

Yes Yitzhak. In my view there was a tradition of vocalisation just in the
same way as there was an oral Torah. That is to say that when we finally set
about writing it down we couldn't all unanimously agree just exactly what
that tradition was. So please forgive me if I'm skeptical but I feel it more
scholarly an approach to analyse the text critically and taking away the
vowel points of the massoretes is an important step in this process.

James Christian

On 6 May 2010 17:48, Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
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