FB: Biblical hebrew language appears created and used for the sole purpose of revealing a deity.
SB: The purpose you infer may be loosely ascribed to the entire anthology, but not necessarily to any component and certainly not to the language. You could make exactly the same claim about Gothic. FB: Nehemiah 8:8 implies the highly trained scribes and/or priests represented the exclusive and intended consumers of the written biblical language. These temple officials orally explained the meaning of the written language to the people. SB: It implies quite the opposite: that the intended consumer was the people. The presence of interpreters can be taken to imply that the language was not readily understandable; but it can equally be taken to imply that these experts exploited their effective monopoly of the text to impose their own interpretation and exclude understandings they regarded as dangerous or disadvantageous. Stoney Breyer Writer/TWC _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
