Biblical Hebrew Forum

[George Athas <George.Athas AT moore.edu.au>]

Isaac, the forms that the root חוה take are more than adequately explained by 
the data to which other list members have pointed, namely the presence of the 
eshtaphel (or hishtaphel) stem. It is not a vague stem, but one that occurs 
some 134 times in the Hebrew Bible. You seem to be assuming that if only one 
root is used in this stem that somehow the stem is illegitimate. This is a 
rather backward reasoning, imposing an undue assumption onto the data. You're 
also apparently unwilling to consider evidence from cognate 
languages—treating Hebrew as a unique monad in the languages of the world. 
Again, this is quite unreasonable.

Unless you're willing to question your assumptions and engage with the 
overwhelming evidence, I don't see much point in continuing the discussion. 
And you haven't as yet shown why the scholarly consensus on this should 
reconsider its conclusions, as you haven't really exposed any weaknesses. 
This seems like a total dead end.


GEORGE ATHAS
Director of Postgraduate Studies,
Moore Theological College (moore.edu.au)
Sydney, Australia