Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Nir cohen - Prof. Mat." <nir AT ccet.ufrn.br>]

uri,

my interest in linguistics is basically diachronic, and at times i 
use a reflection of the present use as a possible clue to understanding 
its past use. clearly i do not imply them to be equal, but often there
is a clear evolution between them. 

some people may disagree, but i assume that diachronic arguments are not
banned in this forum.

[though in the case of X$ML=electricity i fully agree with you. this 
term was re-defined in the late 19th century (by ben yehuda, 
i assume, given this new technology), so that it can give almost 
no clue as to earlier uses, in spite of isaac's protests.]

but there is a more relevant argument here. when one is discussing 
not the text itself but its modern translators [and this was the original
question about )NW$], one cannot avoid considering possible biases they 
have introduced, for example, by consulting the modern dialect.

here i was pointing at exactly such a possible bias. the translator,
influenced by the meaning "incurable" of "XWLH )NW$", may have been 
led to translate the isolate )NW$ as equally "incurable", when this 
was not necessarily the original meaning.

nir cohen

>> De: Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>
Para: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Data: Wed, 10 Oct 2012 09:15:06 -0700 (PDT)
Assunto: [b-hebrew]  Jeremiah 17:9
  Perhaps somebody can explain what is the purpose
of citing in this list modern usage of Hebrew,
sometimes totally different from the one used well
over two thousand years before in biblical texts?

>>  To give just one example : what is the use of
citing  the modern Heb. term Hashmal (electricity),
with with its source in Ezekiel? It may be of
interest to those who study the development of
the modern language, but this is outside
the realm of this list.

 And, of course, most users of this list do not
know, and  need not know  modern Hebrew.

  Uri Hurwitz