Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On Wed, May 26, 2010 at 9:18 PM, James Christian wrote:
> Yitzhak,
> I'm sure that you are aware that whether Karl's reading is different to
> 'everyone elses' is completely irrelevant to this discussion. This is not a
> popularity contest. The question is whether Karl's reading is a reasonable
> translation in light of the data. Even if it isn't your reading can easily
> be explained by lazy yodh handling to save time in inscriptions. Just like
> your gentilics. You still haven't answered either of in general terms about
> what Judean Hebrew inscriptions you are talking about. I'm fairly sure that
> given the data your analysis may come under similar scrutiny.

I have chosen to reply now, because of your comment regarding Karl and
the popularity contest.  It was important for me to put this straight.

First of all, it is not my analysis.  My own personal theory has been 
withdrawn
from the discussion for about a week now.  It only related to the spelling of
ראש in Siloam.  What I am discussing now is agreed upon by practically all
scholars.  That is to say, I am not aware of any scholar that supports the
converse argument.  This is not to say that I've not read up on scholars
on the subject.  As you can probably guess, I've read a wide variety of
viewpoints.  This point that I am discussing is not one of disagreement.  So
please stop representing it as "my theory."  It is not.  I wish it
were.  I would
be a great scholar with such a great following.  But it is old news.  Everyone
knows about it.  Everyone seems to agree with it.

As for Karl's readings, I'm not saying this is a popularity contest.
Karl will have
the burden of proof to justify his reading.  However, I figured it
would be a good
idea to know how he reads them in their entirety before rebutting the reading
he has proposed.

Finally, I see that you have added "gentilic" to your list of
buzz-words.  Please
look up again what it means, please look up again what I said about it.  You
are again making suggestions about my position which are the opposite of
what I said.  I said that gentilics and duals are basically the only cases 
where
we do see a -ym spelling in epigraphic orthography.  You suggested that
I said that gentilics are the only case where the yodh is missing:

> the reason I haven't responded to your response of a yodh suggestion is
> because, to this very moment, I am still scratching my head in wonder as
> to why you think your response is relevant to a practice of being lazy and
> missing out the Yohds in gentilics.

Besides the case that you are misrepresenting my position, you are also
misrepresenting your response.  You did respond to my discussion of Lachish.
You said I outright rejected it.  This is again a misrepresentation (to say 
the
least).  I did not outright reject it.  I looked at relevant evidence
and rejected
it based on evidence.  It is perhaps more accurate to say that had you read
up on the subject and on epigraphy before making your statement, you might
not have made it at all.

Yitzhak Sapir