I think the general understanding is that they had to memorize them and had cluses based on the context as well.
But remember that back then they didn't have a lot of other things study. So maybe it was possible to just about memorize the whole thing. Then in context, it would not be too terribly hard to memorize the words. Besides, if the teachers spent a lifetime studying the scripture, I'm sure they'd be pretty good at it. Even with my minor level of understanding of the Hebrew, when I run across YHWH, I'm pretty confident in what it says. I do not need the vowels. If I am writing it by hand, I also tend to skip the vowels as well to save time. If you think about it, how did the people that added the vowel markings, know which ones to add? They had to have memorized them and used the context of the sentence to know for sure. Apprently it worked well enough for thousands of years. So it has to be possible. I don't think it is a crazy idea to have them memorized. Most of the modern Hebrew that I see doesn't have the vowels. So apparently you can memorize the words without the vowels, and then based on context you can know what word is being used if there are a couple of similar words that are spelled the same without the vowels. However, the vowels are pretty simple to learn. So why not learn them? I cannot think of a good reason not to learn them. Jon ________________________________ From: hebrewsister <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Wed, July 7, 2010 10:49:25 AM Subject: [ancient_hebrew] Vowel Mark Question, How How necessary is it really? I was wondering how necessary is it to know the vowel marks under the letters if it is a new thing? Is it possible to learn to read Hebrew without them? I mean, How did they learn it before? Bayadwa
