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  • From: "Barry H." <nebarry AT verizon.net>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Hebrew was linguistically isolated?
  • Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2013 20:48:20 -0400

On 4/18/2013 7:14 PM, Will Parsons wrote:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but it’s my understanding that only a little of
Greek literature from before Homer survives, and even in Homer the picture
is of citizen soldiers, not a professional or even semi-professional class
of elite soldiers as existing then. Therefore any argument that the
term οπλιτης/hoplite didn’t exist before about 500 BC is an argument from
silence, not evidence.

You're right about Greek literature before Homer, but the point is
that to the best of my knowledge Homer doesn't use the term
ὁπλῖται/hoplites, and although he does use the word ὅπλον/hoplon, it's
with the sense "tools" or "tackle", not in the sense "shield" or
"armour" that gave rise to the form _hoplites_.

Furthermore, the term _hoplites_ is a specialized term for a certain
type of warrior that fought in a very specialized type of formation
(the "phalanx") that required a high degree of training, quite unlike
the bronze-age "heroic" warfare depicted in the Iliad.

You say this is an argument from silence, but I say, why assume a
specialized term for a type of warrior existed in Homeric times when
there's no evidence that either the word or the type of warfare
associated with it existed in Homer's time (let alone the still
earlier time of the action of the Iliad. I have to agree to what
George wrote in an earlier reply, this is a matter of possibility
vs. probability, and the probability seems quite slim, not enough to
warrent equating חפלתי with ὁπλίτης.

Well, at this point I'm going to drop the matter, since it seems to be
getting somewhat tangential to Biblical Hebrew.


In Plato's Laches, one of the starting points for the discussion on courage and moral virtue is the new style of warfare involving hopla. hoplites is originally an adjective meaning "wearing armor" but by classical times comes to be understood in the technical sense you discuss above. The earliest attested use seems to be in Herodotus.

--
N.E. Barry Hofstetter
The American Academy
http://www.americanacademy.net
The North American Reformed Seminary
http://tnars.net
Bible Translation Magazine
http://bible-translation.net




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