Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Dear Fred:


To take your truck analogy, we on this list are trying to reverse engineer a
truck, an 18 wheeler, we have never seen. Some of us have pored over repair
manuals over and over again, others glanced at those manuals but have found
a sports car, or a sedan, maybe both and try to see how similarities in
those designs give clues on how to build the truck.


What you are trying to do is to assemble and drive that truck, when the rest
of us are still trying how to figure out the transmission, did we cut the
gears correctly so that they mesh together smoothly? What about the steering
linkage? Was that ball joint supposed to be here or there, or were there
supposed to be two ball linkages?


Biblical Hebrew has not been spoken for over 2000 years, therefore none of
us have heard it spoken, there are no native speakers to whom we can go with
questions concerning the language, there is only one surviving book with a
few surviving other letters and short documents in that language. What’s
worse, we have only the consonants, no vowels, so we don’t know how it was
pronounced, which results in that there are homographs (words written the
same way) that very likely were pronounced differently so that they were not
homophones (pronounced the same way). Among the many homographs are words
that had very different meanings. Among those homographs we sometimes
disagree which meaning to assign to each occurrence.


Now theologians march boldly where angels fear tread, making confident
statements concerning the messages in Tanakh that linguists recognize are
not clearly understood. Other theologians are more humble, willing to admit
that there are verses that they don’t understand, but go with verses that
they do understand. And Bible translators are the most hidebound, claiming
that if they produced translations that reflect the latest findings in the
language, that their translations won’t sell.


In earlier messages you made confident statements concerning the meaning of
the text based on your understanding, but where I was almost shouting to my
computer  “Whoa there!” You need to consider this aspect, or that meaning,
or recognize that you are dealing with a homograph, and so forth. Often
there were multiple issues to each of your statements, and you had several
statements to each message. In our careful way, we are commenting on one
issue per message, so that one of your messages brought up as many
linguistic issues as we would bring up in a few months, linguistic issues
that may negate your understanding of each verse.


In closing, we don’t have all the parts yet for that truck. You are welcome
to help us reverse engineer that repair manuel (which does not include a
complete parts list, nor instructions on how to make all them) so we can
figure out what all was in that truck, but it is far from ready to assemble,
let alone drive.


Karl W. Randolph.

On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 2:27 PM, fred burlingame <tensorpath AT gmail.com>wrote:

> Hello George:
>
> Thanks for your comments.
>
> I understand the forum policy that forbids theology. Discussion of the
> latter point frequently provokes non-productive emotional response.
>
> I do not understand however, how:
>
> a. an effective discussion of language can arrive;
>
> b. when such language becomes expressed exclusively in the context of
> "truck
> transmission manuals;"
>
> c. and yet the purpose and character of truck transmissions cannot be
> discussed; rather only the "nuts and bolts" that comprise the transmission
> can be ventilated.
>
> It seems like this forum cures "cures the cancer," but loses the patient in
> the process.
>
> In other words, how can you access the true meaning of words that describe
> a
> Person; and yet not discuss that Person?
>
> I cannot imagine any reasonable discussion of middle english
> language expressed in canterbury tales proceeding in this manner; or
> shakespeare, etc.
>
> Regards,
>
> fred burlingame
>
>