Biblical Hebrew Forum

[fred burlingame <tensorpath AT gmail.com>]

can you imagine attempting to read or explain the book of isaiah or
deuteronomy to a group of adults who attended not college, not high school,
not grammar school; who have never read from a written book?

In 2010 a.d., that exercise would result in ... failure.

I don't see how human nature or ability has changed in 3,000 years? ...
Humans still have eyes, ears and mouths. Has their ability to understand
elevated written language, a language different from conversational language
... changed? Could humans then understand the written language read to them,
when they could not read or write it?

I don't think so; not approaching the same level of the literate levitical
priests, scribes, etc., who presumably wrote the masoretic text at a level
of language consistent with their highly trained abilities.

regards,

fred burlingame

On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 8:51 PM, K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com> wrote:

> Fred:
>
>  On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 3:44 PM, fred burlingame 
> <tensorpath AT gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> I am saying that language comprehension does not come in a fixed container
>> or packet, but rather exists on a continuum. Some people have first grade
>> language skill; some people have high school language skill; and some
>> people
>> enjoy graduate school language skill.
>>
>
> You must have a very low opinion as to the intelligence employed by the
> average ancient Israelite in his language comprehension. Almost all the
> vocabulary and concepts mentioned in Deuteronomy were from daily use, no
> more difficult than expected from high school students. Compared to some of
> the other books in Tanakh, Deuteronomy is rather simple and straight
> forward, making your paragraph above appropriate ..... not.
>
> We moderns, on the other hand, have two additional difficulties: 1) we no
> longer inhabit their world, so reading Deuteronomy brings us in contact with
> concepts with which we are unfamiliar, and 2) some of the terminology has
> been forgotten, so we moderns are guessing as to their meaning and
> understanding. These are modern difficulties, not in any way to be applied
> to a study of Biblical Hebrew in its understanding by its original audience.
>
>>
>> …
>> And I am saying, as I said before, that most consumers of the Code, then
>> and
>> now, enjoy not the level of language skill that david possesses;
>
>
> How do you know? Where is your data? This sounds like a presupposition, not
> a conclusion based on knowledge and research.
>
>
>> or that is
>> possessed by the Code.
>
>
> See above. Apparently you have not read the whole of Tanakh?
>
>
>>
>> regards,
>>
>> fred burlingame
>>
>
> Karl W. Randolph.
>
>