Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

>>>> [RB] Based on the evaluated, weighed evidence of all sources,
>>>> this is not and never was Biblical Hebrew.
>>>
>>> [KR] By the same measure, Masoretic Hebrew “ is not and never was
>>> Biblical Hebrew.”
>>
>> 'By the SAME measure' would mix apples and oragnges.
>> The difference is organic connection versus imagination. Scholars can
>> work with organic development, like thalassa and thalatta in Greek.
>> But idiosyncratic imagination is simply unconnected 'nothing'.
>
> I see you do not deny that “By the same measure, Masoretic Hebrew “ is
> not and never was Biblical Hebrew.” ”

Karl, most everyone agrees that the MT shows some dialectical
development from First Temple BH, e.g. begedkefet letters, and
the 7-8 phonemic vowel system, however,
my comment was questioning and denying the use of the words
'by the SAME  MEASURE'.
The little test' had been proposing a 'pig latin' Hebrew
" Ba ray ah sa yay te ba ray ah eh lo ha ye ma eh ta ha sa ... "
That proposal is not 'in the ballpark' and cannot even be related to
what First Temple BH was like. Such a proposal is
not based on a weighed, evaluation of all available evidence
but was an idiosyncratic proposal that cannot be entertained
by Semitists or by people that can evaluate the full scope of
the evidence. (That evidence includes evaluating and weighing the
connections with closely related languages like Arabic, Aramaic, Ugaritic,
El-Amarna, the spelling of the consonantal BH text, and the internal
development of Hebrew and doing such weighing and evaluation with the
experience and skill of knowing the parameters within which languages
develop and change.)
On the other hand, the Masoretic vocalization of BH shows an organic
development within the parameters within which languages develop and
change. No one whom I know who has the skills to evaluate the above
would argue that the MT represents BH exactly with the phonetic quality
of First Temple Hebrew. But the MT is 'in the ballpark', it is structually
on target, it shows evidence of preserving information and structures
that were from older linguistic layers than its own system, and it is part
of any evidence for reconstructing a more precise First Temple BH. In
that sense, the MT is a real representation of BH.
I say all of this, relying on personal acquaintance with the evidence, it
is not a blind 'argument from authority'. Unfortunately, if you want to
dispute this you will need the prerequisite skills listed. It will do no good
to point out that people make mistakes and that none of the individual
pieces of evidence are 100% reliable. They require evaluation and
weighing so that the composite picture comes more and more in focus.
However, the composite picture removes pigLatin Hebrew from
potential options. (Also, interpreting a particular verse in the MT
differently from the MT has nothing to do with the language system
as a whole and does not contradict the language that is seen in the MT.)

So 'pigLatin' Hebrew and the MT should not be lumped together
'post modernly' as "by the same measure".
PigLatin Hebrew is just a case of post-modern extremism ("every reader
has their viewpoint"), while the MT is organically related to First Temple
BH.

I probably don't have much more to say on this thread unless a person
shows acquaintance with the prereqs. We've been down that road
before and it inevitably boils down to one side throwing out evidence
based on lack of access versus evaluating and weighing all sources
of evidence, related to things like the existence of CVC syllables in BH
and the various noun and verb morphological shapes of BH and the
related languages. Most people would either learn from those with
wider experience (at least provisionally until further knowledge was
acquired), or else would actively learn and control the wider evidence.
To continue to propose pigLatin Hebrew as an option is a kind of
flat-Earthism.

Maybe the other thread would be more profitable for discussion since
it has some specific data.

kwa heri (I'm currently spending some time with Swahili)
Randall Buth

-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth AT gmail.com
Biblical Language Center
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