The thread on "words adopted ..." seems to have had quite a bit of unsubstantiated rhetoric, though the topic could be benefitial.
It would be a courtesy to the list to have some data discussed and compared, rather than have positions pontificated. Karl: > but the literary style is > consistent with a pre-Babylonian Exile style in a way that was not > copied by any post-Babylonian Exile Hebrew documents, which > also shows up in the poetry of the document. Therefore, the > claim that the one word shows late authorship is contradicted > by a far greater weight of data indicating early authorship. 'The literary style is consistent with a pre-Babylonian ... style ...'? This is an assertion. Data would be appreciated. This is also where the loan word discussion on pardes or pitgam can be included. Personal feelings are naturally diminished as testimony on style if they argue habenu הבנו as "let's deliver", or hatsil as the causative of a qal that already means 'to take out of' in the qal. A list of examples of pre-Babylonian stylistics would be necessary before making the style claim. DVance: >It does no such thing. What are the extant texts from the ninth > century to which you are comparing it? It, in fact reads very much > exilic and post-exilic, to the degree that a text can be dated on style. This too, is an assertion. However, as Delitsch said a century and a half ago, if there is any history to the Hebrew language, Qohelet is post-exilic. I would concur. And pardes and pitgam (Q 8.11, Est 1.20, widely attested in post-exilic Aramaic) clearly fit a Persian period, and do NOT CLEARLY fit the tenth century. Probability is certainly on Donald's and George's side. But this is just the beginning. There was also the confusion of 'remotest possibility' for 'probability'. >The question here: is it possible that this word came into Hebrew > early and possibly from sources other than Persian? The answers > to both is yes. The moment one admits that the possibility is positive, > then one has nullified its presence as a date marker for later > composition. Probability is not the question Exactly the opposite is true. Probability is always the question in things historical. Lack of certainty is not a criterion that allows someone to disregard probabilities. Probabilities are weighed. So instead of arguing that those who mentioned "pardes" are silent, why don't people list features of Qohelet that they find distinctive, and potentially diagnostic? These can then be WEIGHED, together, rather than have them all individually doubted on the grounds that any one feature can always be explained as an accident of one kind of another. Distinctives could link Qohelet to earlier Hebrew or to later Hebrew. Both sides can be accomodated in the discussion. Here are a some linguistic examples: אספות asuppot Q 12.11 occurs only here and in mishnaic Hebrew. כבר kevar only in Qohelet and mishnaic Hebrew. לוה "accompany" Q 8.15 and in mishnaic Hebrew. ענין 'affair' 8xx Q and in mishnaic Hebrew רעיון 'thought' Q 2.22 and in mishnaic Hebrew ש she- "that" is interesting because of its frequency in Qohelet and in mishnaic Hebrew. It has been argued to have come from a northern dialect because of its occurrences in Judges and perhaps Jonah. Of course, a northern origin would not help a Solomonic authorship claim. Since "she-" 'that' cannot be easily explained as Judean in the pre-exilic period, it adds considerable weight to the post-exilic perspective. Another remarkable feature of the book is the use of w+suffix verb in contexts that are parallel with other suffix verbs. All twenty-one occurrences are accented as mil`el in the MT. This is remarkable because the rabbinic tradition was that Solomon wrote the book, but the "mishnaic Hebrew" accentuation of this book is without any parallel in the Hebrew Bible for its absolute consistency. In the rest of the Heb Bible, non-pausal forms 1s and 2s suffix conjugation tend to have a final syllable accent as part of the sequential verb system. The features above are not 'silence' and they do, in fact, support the otherwise strong probability that pitgam and pardes were borrowed into Hebrew when there was strong Aramaic pressure from on top--during the Persian period. braxot Randall Buth -- Randall Buth, PhD www.biblicallanguagecenter.com Biblical Language Center Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
