Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Fred:

On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 4:30 PM, fred burlingame <tensorpath AT gmail.com>wrote:

>
> Your comment in your paragraph 2 is most interesting. I thought that a
> person raised and trained in the hebrew language spoken in israel today,
> cannot, absent special additional training, understand a reading of the
> torah? Am I incorrect in this conclusion?
>
> …
> Is that true for the average college educated person in israel who has
> never
> read the torah? Can she understand the torah being read to her for the
> first
> time at say age 21? ... Or does such a person exist?
>
> Thanks for your comments.
>
> regards,
>
> fred burlingame


That is a question I asked specifically of Israelis I met at technical
conferences, college educated, but in fields other than Bible, and their
reactions were that they found Tanakh difficult to understand, or often not
understood at all.

Karl W. Randolph.