Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

Thank you for this notice.
The web article was nice to see as available,
but disappointing in its content.
I've relabelled this thread because it is beyond loanwords.
1T means 'First Temple Period', the is, pre-exilic, and 2T means
Second Temple Period, that is, post-exilic, or LateBH.

some notes:
1. The discussion on the 'external' criterion does not reflect frequency
or its contribution as a mechanism for the change. It throws out
the baby with the bathwater.
2. malxut shows a very dramatic change from 1T to 2T Hebrew.
Reading a concordance certainly helps. One can say that malxut
shifted from a rare, marignal word to a common word. It also helps
to recognize that malxuto and *mluxato could result from an easy
transposition of consonants. Not that we want to go that route. However,
if there is one reference to 'kingdom, rule' in a book, and that word
is malxut, then it does add to the 2T color of the work. Cf. Qoh 4.
3. the article claims that frequency is not a criterion but explainable
by 'style'. Sorry, but that is a logical non-sequitur. And the article
did mention that changes in frequency are a legitimate chronological
feature in other languages.
4. In the tables, repetitions were not counted, which skews the
frequency, and the listing of the features themselves were not
presented which doesn't allow the reader to evaluate the correctness
of the compilation, nor the weight of any feature.
5. The Iranian claims were bogus or suspect. Dt 33.2 '.sh.d.t. was
not recognized by the LXX as "esh dat". That interpretation
changes the ktiv and looks very much like a rabbinic midrash. Also
for Isaiah razi 'trouble, woe, emaciation', there is nothing in the context
to suggest that it is the Persian word raz expanded to  'my secret'
6. it did not mention the statistically verified spelling distinctions
between 1T and 2T Hebrew. See point 7.
7. SBL had a session on this a couple of years ago. I was able to
attend. One side waved their hands, one side made body blows.
The papers are being collected and may be out this year or next.
the paper by Dean Forbes on spelling statistics was of interest
because it is unrelated to content or style, but does show that the
MT was the preservation of a very conservative text. The 1T
docs reflect a 6th century spelling, the others are later.

I think that it is fair to say that people appreciated the Young, et al.,
work more for the opportunity to evaluate and clarify the situation
than for being a credible weighing of all of the evidence.

blessings
Randall Buth


-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicallanguagecenter.com
Biblical Language Center
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