Biblical Hebrew Forum

[fred burlingame <tensorpath AT gmail.com>]

Hello Karl:

Thanks for your comments.

Please allow me to respond.

I need to clarify, as an initial matter, the conditions under which I post
here. The rules of this forum (not my rules) govern my posts. The primary
two forum rules, in my humble understanding, include:

a. The masoretic text ("MT") represents the universe of this forum.

b. This forum forbids any assertion of the truth or falsity of story told by
the MT.

The hebrew language of Nehemiah 8:8 suggests that:

1. the priests read the law verbatim to the people in hebrew;

2. the priests then explained or interpreted that law for the people in
hebrew.

Indeed, those portions of the book of ezra in aramaic language included
letters copied from the aramaic enemy.

Deuteronomy 17:18-19; 31:9-10, 19 imply:

a. the illiteracy of the people;

b. the corresponding literacy of the priestly class; and

c. the priests as exclusive consumers of the hebrew written word; and the
people as recipients of the hebrew oral word from the priests.

And when I make a statement here, I should properly recite the above
conditions of the forum, namely that the story may or may not be true. But
that redundancy after every statment of mine, becomes a bit ponderous.

 For purposes of the forum rules, the MT equals the novel Gone with the
Wind, in my understanding. In other words, if I said "rhett kissed
scarlett," I really mean that event happened not in real life, but in the
story. Likewise, when I say "hebrew was spoken by ezra and the people," or
" יהוה exists," I mean, that's what the story says, not what happened in
real life. Why? Because those conditions govern this forum.

I hope I don't need to keep repeating this foundational premise of this
forum.

regards,

fred burlingame

On Sat, Oct 30, 2010 at 2:20 PM, K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com> wrote:

> Fred:
>
> You are making presuppositions for which neither you nor anyone else has
> any evidence.
>
> On Fri, Oct 29, 2010 at 7:59 AM, fred burlingame 
> <tensorpath AT gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Hello all:
>>
>> ויקראו בספר בתורת האלהים מפרש ושום שכל ויבינו במקרא
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> The technical ongoing discussion at this forum of the written language
>> tends
>> to support that view.
>>
>
> This reflects not the original audience who were contemporaries of Moses
> and Joshua, rather many centuries later after Hebrew had ceased to be spoken
> as a native tongue. Hebrew continued to be learned and every male was
> expected to have at least some knowledge of Hebrew, but how many actually
> mastered Hebrew?
>
>>
>> regards,
>>
>> fred burlingame
>>
>
> Karl W. Randolph.
>
>