Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Dear James:


Thank you for sending those few pages covering sections 1.1 through 1.3
from Dr. Blau. They clear up some misconceptions.


First of all, when he defines “Biblical Hebrew”, he means Tiberian Hebrew
as defined by the Masoretic points and its grammar as understood for that
time. See §1.2.3. In other words, he refers to a different definition of
“Biblical Hebrew” than I, where I refer to the written text authored over
slightly over a millennium from about 1450 BC to about 400 BC. which has
evidence for different pronunciation and the grammar was definitely
different.


On b-hebrew discussions, that was the main difference between Yitzak
Sapir’s and my treatments of the term “Biblical Hebrew”.


An example of how this difference works out in practice is his treatment in
§1.1.14 of the verbal tenses which is Tiberian Hebrew, not Biblical Hebrew
as I understand the term above.


In §1.2.6 he ascribes a completely different source than I for the “vowel
letters”. I think they were originally consonantal, only later became
“vowel” through language change, most of which after Hebrew was no longer
spoken as the primary native tongue in Judea. It is unknown how many “vowel
letters” were either added into the written text of the Bible or dropped by
copyist error over time. Some books may have suffered more “corrections”
than others.


How many of the variations mentioned in §1.2.4, §1.2.7, and §1.2.8 are
poetic rather than diachronic? Examples in English where letters are
repeated to indicate carrying a sound over sever notes, or dropped (e.g.
“e’er” for “ever”) to shorten them. With so much of the text poetic, does
that not give a tendency to do these variations? And how many of the
differences were where a scribe “corrected” the text because the later
pronunciations had lost the rhythm of the poetry, e.g. the example in
§1.2.4 of Psalm 18?


However the changes he mentions for Chronicles indicate that it was written
by and for people whose native tongue was not Hebrew, rather Aramaic, yet
it was written in Hebrew because Hebrew was the language of temple, state
and high literature, similar to the treatment of Latin in Europe about a
millennium later.


How many of the variations were because Biblical Hebrew did not have a
strict orthography as do modern languages, rather it was written down by
ear? Even so, we find fewer variations than found, for example, English
from 200 years and more ago, though part of that can be explained by the
fact that only the consonants were written without the vowels.


I need more background information on section 1.3 before making a complete
comment on it.


In closing, his understanding of the verbal system is Tiberian, not
Biblical. The same is true of his understanding of pronunciation. I don’t
see him taking into account the effects of poeticizing on the language. And
how much of the book is taken up with changes that happened from the
Mishnaic period and later, therefore not part of the discussion of Biblical
Hebrew but of interest for Tiberian Hebrew?


Even this short section confirmed some of the negative reviews I read of
the book. If I read the whole book, how many more of the negative reviews
would be confirmed?


The questions above are at least partially rhetorical.


>From these few pages, it appears that the book would be good for a study of
Mishnaic and later Hebrews. If that is what is your interest, that would
explain why some people think highly of the book. But with my main interest
being Biblical Hebrew, namely the consonantal text, its vocabulary and
grammar, I am somewhat underwhelmed by what the book has to offer as
evidenced by these sections.


Thanks again for sending that pdf file.


Karl W. Randolph.