Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Stoney Breyer" <stoneyb AT touchwoodcreative.com>]

FB: Biblical hebrew language appears created and used for the sole purpose of 
revealing a deity.

SB: The purpose you infer may be loosely ascribed to the entire anthology, 
but not necessarily to any component and certainly not to the language. You 
could make exactly the same claim about Gothic.

FB: Nehemiah 8:8 implies the highly trained scribes and/or priests 
represented the exclusive and intended consumers of the written biblical 
language. These temple officials orally explained the meaning of the written 
language to the people.

SB: It implies quite the opposite: that the intended consumer was the people. 
The presence of interpreters can be taken to imply that the language was not 
readily understandable; but it can equally be taken to imply that these 
experts exploited their effective monopoly of the text to impose their own 
interpretation and exclude understandings they regarded as dangerous or 
disadvantageous.

Stoney Breyer
Writer/TWC