Biblical Hebrew Forum

[fred burlingame <tensorpath AT gmail.com>]

Hello Paul:


Thanks for your comments.

Perhaps I can respond in reverse order.

1. A great day, today, to be outside and away from the computer. ... :)

2. The announced purpose of this forum: "b-hebrew is a forum dedicated to
the discussion of biblical hebrew language and literature." Moderators have
amplified this function with the policy that the masoretic text ("MT") forms
the primary factual universe of this forum.

3. Language and literature discussion, be it sourced from Archie comic
books, the Rosetta stone or points beyond; necessarily includes the meaning
of the words used. Reasonable people do not discuss the language and
literature of submarine construction manuals, and fail to converse on what
those submarines do and do not do, including the proper meaning of the
relevant written words.

4. I do not advance any particular theology with my posts. I am simply
taking the language and literature presented and compiled in a single book
(aleppo codex, leningrad codex, etc.), and offer my opinions as to what the
factual record discloses about word meaning and structure. And that factual
record involves not submarines, but rather a Person named יהוה .

5. No less an authority than the Brown, Driver, Briggs Lexicon ("BDB")
offers its opinion of biblical hebrew word meanings, by comparison of such
word usage across the entire spectrum of the MT. Is BDB preaching a
particular religion? Most people would say: "No."

6. Does the BDB represent a discussion of biblical language and literature?
I would think so.

7. A nation of priests requires secular parts just as the brain (organ of
thought) needs non-thinking parts (feet, hands, stomach) to survive and
prosper.

8. The priestly nation, identified in the relevant Exodus verse, can also be
defined as all people in the nation engaged in simple work. The shepherd for
example, feeds his own stomach with his labor (love self); and he furnishes
goat milk for others to consume for a price (love others). The nation of
priests hence mediates between יהוה and other גוים by example of deed versus
"preaching, teaching and sacrificing." Does this definition of the
word constitute theology? Maybe, but i intend not. Does the entire language
and literature of the MT represent theology? Maybe, but i intend not in my
posts. Nevertheless, the unequivocal fact remains that the universe of this
forum (MT) includes the language and literature of the Person יהוה repeated
6,000 + times; not Archie from comic book fame; or anyone or anything else.

9. Submarines engage in exploratory and military activity. Can the language
and literature of submarines be understood by ignoring the military purpose?
Probably not. Can the MT language and literature,  ואתם תהיו לי ממלכת כהנים
וגוי קדוש be understood properly (or even at all) by ignoring its clerical
(versus secular) purpose? Probably not.

10. My Exodus quote above and in the prior post is written right to left.

11. My posts generally confine themselves to the parameters of this forum,
aka MT, and not to the other documents you observed may exist.

12. I do not try to convince anyone of anything here. One need look no
further than the never ending conflict at temple mount to know that
"convincing" and "convinced" represent part of the human repertoire or
character, not.

13. Perhaps i can summarize this post as follows.

14. Do any of my posts preach or imply that יהוה or the MT equal the truth,
the way and the life? No.

15. Do any of my posts preach or imply that יהוה or the MT equal a fairy
tale? No.

16. Do any of my posts suggest that the language and literature of the MT
represent a story all about a Person named יהוה ? Yes.

17. Do any of my posts suggest that proper understanding of the pieces
(letters) and parts (words) (aka "trees") of the biblical hebrew language,
require an understanding of the story (forest) memorialized by the language?
Yes.

Well, time to go.

regards,

fred burlingame


On Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 8:36 AM, Paul Zellmer <pzellmer AT sc.rr.com> wrote:

> You may have convinced Stoney, but your original proposition is still way
> off base.  The sole *surviving* witnesses are religious documents, but your
> proposition assumes that those form a legitimate sampling of the entirety of
> the historical works.  You bring out as support to your proposition the case
> of a people who had come from a lengthy stay in a land where both the trade
> and legal languages were something other than Hebrew.  One would not expect
> that the average person would then maintain Hebrew as their lingua franca,
> especially since there is significant evidence that many (perhaps most)
> chose to assimilate into the new culture.  How else should we interpret the
> fact that there was not an en masse exodus to the homeland when such was
> allowed?  In this situation, we would expect that the ones who would
> preserve the "home language" would be those who would have motivation other
> than trade or day-to-day activities.  Those who are more concerned with
> religious matters would have such additional motivation.  So it is not at
> all surviving when, upon a revival of the religious matters, the average
> person, who might have never even learned the Hebrew language, would need
> the ones who preserved the language skill to explain the text to him.
>
> We actually have Biblical claims that there were other documents written
> during the kingdom period, the period before the captivity which I believe
> caused the situation resulting in the priests needing to explain the text to
> the average people.  The books of the Kings make several references to
> chronicles which have not survived to the modern period.  Are you proposing
> that those were written in a language other than Hebrew, or that those were
> religious in character?  I would expect that they were indeed written in
> Hebrew, and were in general secular.  If these were Hebrew secular documents
> which did not survive the ages, why should we not expect that there would be
> other, more mundane documents which were not preserved?
>
> Your Exodus reference (is it really too difficult for people writing Hebrew
> on this list to use right-to-left word order?) actually shoots your
> proposition in the foot.  If the nation is to be one of priests, would that
> not imply that the nation as a whole would have the skills of the
> priesthood?  If, as is your proposition, those skills would include
> literacy, it would follow that the nation in general would be literate.
>  This response to Stoney is an example of your habitual treatment of the
> Tanakh as a unified body. This may be acceptable in theological discussions,
> but goes beyond what we have generally agreed to do on this list.  We may
> refer to other texts to determine the meaning of a word or phrase or form,
> but to take the *teaching* of a passage and use it to interpret the meaning
> of another passage is getting away from the study of the language itself.
>
> Every thread that you have tried to originate since you joined this list
> seems to have been aimed at making general statements about the Hebrew
> Bible.  Perhaps your posts would be more in line with the historical purpose
> of this list if you shifted your focus to the *elements* of the language and
> not the language in general or culture/history of the Hebrew Bible.
>
> Well, I'm going to crawl back into lurker mode.  Too many other
> distractions to lengthy discussions onlist!
>
> Paul Zellmer
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:
> b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of fred burlingame
> Sent: Friday, October 29, 2010 1:16 PM
> To: Stoney Breyer
> Cc: B-Hebrew
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] the intended consumer of biblical hebrew language
>
> An interesting theory, the secular nature of the biblical hebrew language;
> but one bereft of factual support. Indeed, the sole witness to the language
> includes a highly religious document, aka the masoretic text; and its dead
> sea scrolls fragmentary predecessor. The internal testimony of that
> document
> further confirms the intended religious nature of the language itself,
> given
> the announced purpose of the nation writing the language.
>
> ואתם תהיו לי ממלכת כהנים וגוי קדוש
>
>  שמות 19:6
>
>
> As for the consumer of the written language, the priestly monopolistic and
> exploitative behavior that you propose, could have occurred only in the
> general absence of written words or scrolls. Such generally accepted rarity
> of written materials itself implies the illiteracy of the 14th century
> hebrew, and the corresponding exclusivity of the written document for the
> ruling class.
>
>
>