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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Words adopted into Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary

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  • From: George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>
  • To: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Words adopted into Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary
  • Date: Thu, 10 Mar 2011 00:10:57 +0000

Karl, you're committing a classic faux pas: mistaking the world of the text
for the real world and using them interchangeably. You're not alone in this.
Many, many people do it. But this does not make it excusable. Now in many
(perhaps even most) cases, there is considerable overlap between the world of
the text and the real world, particularly as it projects real persons and
events into a literary form. But they are not exactly the same. It is a
mistake to assume that the narrator/speaker of a text is necessarily the same
as the author. You have to find a datum outside the text itself to confirm
this.

To add to Don's comments, Qohelet very much evinces a style at home in the
Persian and/or Hellenistic contexts. In particular, the reticence to use the
divine name in favour of a more generic אלהים is consistent with the waning
of henotheistic religions in the Persian Era and beyond. The philosophical
questioning of a classic Deuteronomistic theology is also something that
flourishes in the Persian Era and beyond, and this is very much a key
ingredient in the rise of apocalypticism, as Don mentioned.

Finally, your comments about the loanwords are not actually building an
argument. A range of possibilities may exist to explain a situation, such as
the presence of a loanword in Hebrew, but this does not mean that each
possibility has equal weighting. To treat them as though they do is a gross
mistake in argumentation. And to then make a conclusion based on a weak
possibility is to make a very weak argument. Many of the 'possibilities' that
you mentioned are essentially arguing from silence. There is little to no
evidence for the possibilities you mention. It's much preferable to work with
hard data and draw conclusions from them, than to make conclusions while
lingering in logical limbo.



GEORGE ATHAS
Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia)
www.moore.edu.au





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