...We can't know exactly how the ancient Hebrews thought. But we can study how various present-day peoples think, including those who have had little exposure to western culture, and some whose general worldview is probably quite similar to that of the ancient Hebrews. Some people do study such things in depth, for example Ron Moe of SIL who is working on lexicography of Bantu languages (see some more about this at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lexicographylist/). It is reasonable to suppose (at least on the assumption that there has been no fundamental and worlwide change in human nature over the last 3000 years or so) that how the ancient Hebrews thought, on most semantic issues (leaving aside for the moment anything specifically religious), is in general terms within the range of ways which different contemporary peoples think.
Is this the way ancient Hebrews thought? Or are we imposing our modern way of
thinking on the ancient Hebrews?
...
With this in mind, what did the ancient Hebrew think of when he thought of,
for example, XBL? Did he “see” an object, long and snake-like, or did he
perceive a function of binding or grouping together where a “rope” is just an
excellent object to fulfill that function? Did the ancient Hebrew see the
form or function first?
As I understand Renier de Blois, he defines XBL first by form, namely a rope.Certainly we should aim not to impose our own categories and ways of thinking. And Reinier is trying hard not to do that. He has come to a different conclusion from you on this word, but I don't think that is because he is imposing his own standards. In this case very likely we cannot be sure which is correct because the data has been lost (although we might get some guidance from Mishnaic Hebrew etc which sadly none of the three of us know).
He then looks at the varied uses of the lexeme in all its forms, to see if it
fits together. It doesn’t all fit together. As a result, he posits four
different etymological roots for XBL.
I, on the other hand, view XBL first as a function, namely binding together
or grouping together (where there is no object doing the binding). All the
uses of XBL that I have analyzed fit that one function. As a result, I see
only one etymological root.
My question comes down to: to what extent is it legitimate for us to use our
Weltanschauung, our way of thinking, when defining Hebrew lexemes and when
does it become an imposition of our categories, a distortion of the ancient
Hebrew understanding?
...
To close, here is my methodology (to contrast with Renier de Blois’ listed above) (Renier, I list it only to bring others up to speed on what we have discussed):
1) A lexeme almost always has only one meaning. It may have no equivalent in
English (even for words from the same etymological root) or there may exist
an almost exact equivalency. The meaning may be very broad and general, or it
may be very narrow and specific, or in between.
2) Where a lexeme has more than one meaning, there is usually a discernible
connection, for example, Birne in German means both light bulb and pear, the
connection being that the early light bulbs had a pear like shape.
3) Where a lexeme has a narrow and specific meaning, it often is either
partially or wholly a subset of another lexeme. Therefore, one way to learn a
lexeme is to compare it to its synonyms.
4) Lexeme meanings are best recognized by the action they refer to, not the
form. This is especially true of ancient Hebrew.
5) Lexeme understanding and usage may be influenced by the context, such as
literary style, figures of speech, use as euphemism, or where the presence of
a specific lexeme may actually make it part of a complex lexeme (two or more
words combining to make another meaning, e.g. “strike out” having a different
meaning than “strike” alone, but the historical connection is still
discernible.)
6) This may be unique to Hebrew, where a noun of an object can be a reference
to an action. For example, David and his men were a XWMH a protective barrier
for Nabel’s sheep and shepherds, i.e. their actions protected.
7) This is, after all, a dictionary from one language to another, therefore,
as much as possible, I used as few words as possible, preferably one, to
describe a Hebrew lexeme as long as that was accurate. For example, XB), used
about 34 times, has almost the exact same meaning as “conceal” in English,
though sometimes in Hebrew it is with a niphal where English would have a
reflexive or active. (There is a slight but noticeable difference between XB)
and XBH, so I list them separately.)
(Though Biblical Hebrew was written over a span of 1000 years, most of it was
written during a time when the language was pretty stable. There was some
change which is discernible and an example of dialectal variation, but almost
none that I could recognize that would change the definitions of lexemes.)
In reference to category 4) above, ancient Hebrew seems to categorize
according to action or function, not according to form or appearance. For
example, (WP or (WP KNP is usually translated as “bird”, but that is not
accurate. It actually refers to flying creatures where the action is the
deciding factor, hence a bat or flying insect is (WP while an ostrich or
penguin is not. (This is also an example of 1) above—there is no equivalency
for this term in English.) Similarly, a XBL rope would be defined by its
ability to bind things together, not its shape.
So what do youall think?
Karl W. Randolph.
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