Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu>]

1. Moses was a כבד פה וכבד לשון (stutterer?), but he  
wrote superb Hebrew that survived to this day.

2. Plus ça change plus c'est la même chose. Of course Hebrew  
"changed", yet it is still, methinks (Gilad Zuckerman  
notwithstanding), the same Hebrew. To wit:
בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ
is still "modern" Hebrew, except that the modern speaker would have  
used the less lofty BA-HATXALAH for בראשית and ASAH for ברא  
(I am not sure how it is stated in the recently published  
"translation" of the Hebrew bible into mundane Hebrew.) Yet, we still  
don't understand what really took place at the first nanosecond of  
"creation".

2. "problems that speakers of modern Hebrew have understanding the  
biblical text" is because the text is occasionally ambiguous or the  
context not clear. We all have problems with some biblical passages.  
Speakers of "modern" Hebrew have the same (or maybe even greater)  
understanding problems with present-day secular Hebrew poetry.

Isaac Fried, Boston University


On Oct 31, 2010, at 2:40 AM, Yigal Levin wrote:

> Really? Did Moses use Ashkenazic or Sephardic pronunciation?
>
> Come on, surely you realize that today's Hebrew is the end product  
> (so far)
> of several thousand years of change, due to both internal factors and
> external influences. One of the problems that speakers of modern  
> Hebrew have
> understanding the biblical text is when they assume that phrases  
> have the
> same meaning there as they do today (although I don't think that this
> permanently handicaps them, like some folks on this list do).
>
>
> Yigal Levin
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org
> [mailto:b-hebrew-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Isaac Fried
> Sent: Sunday, October 31, 2010 6:00 AM
> To: Uri Hurwitz
> Cc: Hebrew List
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Piel Participles of ayin-waw-yod
>
> There is no "modern" Hebrew. We still speak the same biblical Hebrew,
> only slightly adapted for everyday use.
>
> Isaac Fried, Boston University
>
>
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