Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Isaac:

On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 4:25 AM, Isaac Fried <if AT math.bu.edu> wrote:

> 1. Meaning is not a point-wise, but rather an an extensive quality and
> therefore comparison of meanings needs to be done in the original Hebrew,
> not on its purported translation.
>

You are avoiding the issue. I am looking at the meanings in Biblical Hebrew,
and finding no connection at all, therefore no indication of common
etymology. For good, linguistic reasons, similarity in form alone is not
recognized as an indicator of etymology. It is on that basis that your claim
is invalid.


> 2. It is my firm opinion that "modern" Hebrew and "biblical" Hebrew are one
> and the same language. As long as we don't have a norm for "sameness" this
> discussion will be of no avail and of no end.
>

There are norms for sameness, and those norms, at least from discussions on
this list, indicate that there are three, if not four, phases that Hebrew
went through as it changed from Biblical to modern Hebrews. Those changes
include that the grammar of Biblical Hebrew is not the same as the grammar
of Mishnaic Hebrew which is not the same as the grammar of modern Hebrew.
There are other changes as well. That you do not acknowledge these
differences …

(Similar differences are recognized for English, from Anglo-Saxon (Beowulf)
to Middle English (Chaucer) to Elizabethan English (Shakespeare, KJV) to
modern English. Or is it your claim that a native speaker of modern English
should have no problems reading Chaucer?)

>
> Isaac Fried, Boston University
>

Karl W. Randolph.