Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Jerry:

On Thu, Jul 11, 2013 at 9:39 PM, Jerry Shepherd <jshepherd53 AT gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Karl,

 

You wrote: "Without evidence, I don’t see how you can make such a claim."

 

Me: Actually there is quite a bit of evidence of redactorial work on earlier books, including rearrangement, orthographic revision, expansion of plene readings, etc.

Therefore, is it your assertion that the main authorship of the Tanakh came after the Babylonian exile?

 

You wrote: "These are the recorded dates in the books, other dates are speculative and a claim that the recorded dates are wrong. Again, where’s your evidence?"

 

Me: But we do not have the texts from those dates.

Irrelevant, if the copies are accurate.

 

  I am not arguing that the recorded dates are wrong; but I am arguing the very evident datum that we don't have any texts from those dates.  All our texts come from later periods, and the texts were most likely edited and updated in those later periods.

In other words, you don’t trust the consonantal text of Tanakh, so why are you making such a big stink about me not trusting the Masoretic points, which are a much later addition? 

 

You wrote: "Not necessarily. There is more likelihood that the pronunciation changed when a “corrupted version” (Mishnaic Hebrew), was spoken."

 

Me: The answer lies somewhere in between on a spectrum, but I would still argue closer to my "frozen" thesis.  And it is very prejudicial to refer to Mishnaic Hebrew as a "corrupted" version.

So what do you call the action where a language has been corrupted—its grammar changed and some lexemes having different meanings—by being used by people who are not native speakers in a way that more approximates their native tongue? 

 

You wrote: "No concessions on my part, I don’t trust the Masoretic points. Period. But I also don’t hold to that straw-man perversion of my position of which people on this list accuse me. Never have."

 

Me: Actually, the "straw-man perversion of my position" turns out to be not a straw man at all.  You don't trust the Masoretic points.  You are the straw man!

This response makes it appear that you don’t know what is a straw man logical fallacy. 

 

You wrote: "I dont have a copy of Waltke & O’Connor, so I can’t look it up to give the exact page. The comment was under a reference to evidence of the language spoken in Canaan during the time of the Amarna Letters."

 

Me: I suspected as much.  I do have a copy of Waltke & O'Connor, and unless I'm completely missing it, they do not say what you reported them as saying.  There are a couple of places in the book where they reference the Amarna correspondence, and suggest that perhaps Hebrew, like other Akkadian and Ugaritic, may have had vocalic case endings which, in the development of the language, were subsequently dropped.  But this is a far cry from suggesting that at one time in Hebrew every consonant was followed by a vowel.

You were not listening: they said the language of Canaan, which I reproduced above, not “Hebrew”. It is I who made the connection that the archaeological record indicates that the Amarna letters were written during the Divided Kingdom era, hence “language of Canaan” referred to Hebrew. 

 

You wrote: "As for strike, there are words in other Germanic languages that refer to a line or mark, occasionally used as a negative mark against a person. If he gets enough of the negative marks, he’s out. Baseball still uses that meaning when referring to marks against a batter, if he gets three for a time up at bat, he’s out. If that baseball player hits 20 foul balls in a row, only two marks are counted against him. That shows that the 'strike' against the batter is not for hitting the ball, but a negative count towards putting him out."

 

Me: You have not shown, however, that the word "strike" in baseball was derived from one of these other words;

Form and function plus that such a use occurs is not enough for you, apparently.

It’s obvious that in baseball, “strike” is used in two different ways, one the common “to hit” but the other obviously not “to miss” because a player can hit the ball, yet have it be counted against him towards having him removed from the batters place. Further the batter can strike (hit) the ball, yet not have it counted either against him nor as being valid for him to get on base. Outside of baseball where the use has been formalized, other synonyms can and are more often used for the same idea.

 

and I don't believe there is really any plausibility to this at all.  So when you said, "When a baseball player swings his bat, he attempts to hit a speeding ball (if he misses, he then has a count against him, which is called a “strike”, from a different root than “strike” to hit)," you were seriously outrunning the evidence in a fairly desperate attempt to hold on to your "single unique meaning" lexeme theory.

To me it looks as if you are putting your fingers in your ears then saying “I don’t hear you” so you don’t have to face that your example fails (in Norwegian “stryke”) (http://www.freedict.com) because we are dealing with two different words that have become homonyms.

 

By comparison, the Masoretes look superlatively trustworthy.

 

Blessings,

 

Jerry

Jerry Shepherd

Taylor Seminary

Edmonton, Alberta

jshepherd53 AT gmail.com

 

Karl W. Randolph.