Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Yitzhak:

On Mon, May 17, 2010 at 4:41 AM, Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>wrote:

>
> Karl, again, the issue is not whether the Siloam inscription or other
> pre-exilic inscriptions
> fit the Bible's spelling, but whether the Bible fits the pre-exilic
> spelling, and it does not.
> I prefer discussing other points besides the construct plural, though.
>
> Yitzhak Sapir
>

You made a claim, which you repeated here, for which you have so far given
no evidence to support it within Hebrew. I would not be surprised that the
totality of your “evidence” comes from cognate languages.

Appropriate evidence to answer this question is inscriptions such as the
Siloam inscription, and that backs up the Biblical spelling. What you need
to find is several different Hebrew examples that show a pattern of
spellings that differ from the Biblical pattern, and not only have you not
done so, I don’t think you can. Without evidence, your claim is empty.

The reason I emphasize Hebrew is that differing spellings from cognate
languages can reflect differing pronunciations that differentiate those
languages from Hebrew. Therefore they are not evidence that the consonantal
spelling of the MT differs from pre-Exilic Hebrew spelling.

For this discussion, you need to refer either to examples that can be viewed
online, or if they are offline, e.g. in books, scan them and send them as
attachments so that we can see them.

Karl W. Randolph.