Cc: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
Subject: RE: Saadia Gaon: Where did Hebrew Come From?
Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 11:53:23 -0500 (EST)
On Fri, 18 Feb 2000, Niels Peter Lemche wrote:
> Saadia Gaon never saw a line of Accadian, never a fragment of Ugaritic. He
> did not know about the existence of ancient inscriptions, i.e. his only
> reference would be Arabic and maybe some Syriac. So how could he in an
> environment that traced everything oriental back to the Arabic peninsula
> think otherwise?
Shalum,
So what you're saying is that his premises were based on the available
information. I'd never heard of Saadia Gaon before, and assumed he was a
modern linguist that had access to all of the above.
Is there anything in his writings that is credible or substantiated, then?