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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect

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  • From: Dave Washburn <davidlwashburn AT gmail.com>
  • To: "b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Verbal Aspect
  • Date: Wed, 29 May 2013 10:55:05 -0700



On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 10:18 AM, K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com> wrote:

Even with modern languages, the only way to become really fluent in another language is to immerse oneself in that language. Academic studies can carry one only so far.


But we can't do this with biblical Hebrew, because we have a seriously limited corpus. So it's not possible to "immerse oneself" in the language, because we have so little of it. for that reason, we have to find other ways to understand it.

 
My experience with Randall Buth is that he made factual errors in Biblical Hebrew where just quoting verses would show the error. This is not just a disagreement in opinion.

One that comes to mind was his claim that “today” HYWM never precedes its verb. Yet even a quick electronic search brought up a few times where it does. As an emphatic. In prose. Would he have made that mistake had he read Tanakh 20 times through instead of only twice decades ago? Much less likely. And that was not the only error.

How many times someone has read the whole book has little or nothing to do with a mistake like this. This is just a matter of not doing one's homework. I've only read it through once, but I know enough to do a search with all the resources at my disposal before making statements like this. I still believe you're doing him a disservice, and basically it sounds and awful lot like "he didn't do it the way I did so he's wrong." I'm not just talking about this one example, but an overall approach to the academic pursuit of BH. Sometimes it's counter-productive. I'm just sayin'.

--
Dave Washburn

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