Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Joseph:

On Mon, Aug 29, 2011 at 7:54 PM, Joseph Roberts 
<josephroberts3 AT gmail.com>wrote:

> I think that the word would have to have a meaning understood by the
> people of that day, Whether you are a secular student of the Tanakh or
> a fervent believer in the text, I think both should reach the
> conclusion that the text was written in the everyday language of time
> period in which it was penned. So if the KJV translators translated it
> as "dragon" from their understanding of the world at their time, at
> best this would be a dynamic equivalent. I think the million dollar
> question is "What did the Hebrew speaking person from that era
> understand that word to mean when he picked up the text and read it."
>

Exactly!

The problem is: today we don’t know what was that animal. All my response
was intended to indicate is that there are different answers that modern man
would accept as possible solutions to this question depending on his à
priori presuppositions. Some of us think that the animals that used to be
called “dragons”, and since the 19th century were called “dinosaurs” are
what the ancients thought of. Others of us think that such a designation is
impossible. Unfortunately, there is neither a surviving ancient to ask, nor
further description of said animal, to allow us to make a definitive answer.


> Of course maybe we can not piece together the meaning of the word from
> the available information, maybe it is just a general word for a group
> of creatures rather than a specific creature or species. The LXX seems
> to use a word for a half-donkey half-man called an "onocentaur."
>

I have learned to take the LXX with a grain of salt.   :-)


> Thanks,
> -Joseph Roberts
> <http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew>
>

Karl W. Randolph.