A week or so ago I posted a link to the on-line discussion that is going on between Ian Young, Robert Rezetko, Rob Holmstedt, and John Cook. It might be worth your time--if you are interested in the topic--to review the posts: http://ancienthebrewgrammar.wordpress.com/
I'm sure Randall can comment more intelligently on the discussion than I... James ________________________________ James Spinti Marketing Director, Book Sales Division Eisenbrauns, Good books for more than 35 years Specializing in Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Studies jspinti at eisenbrauns dot com Web: http://www.eisenbrauns.com Phone: 574-269-2011 ext 226 Fax: 574-269-6788 -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Randall Buth Sent: Friday, March 11, 2011 4:37 AM To: Hebrew Subject: [b-hebrew] 1T and 2T BH vs Young (was Words adopted ...) Thank you for this notice. The web article was nice to see as available, but disappointing in its content. I've relabelled this thread because it is beyond loanwords. 1T means 'First Temple Period', the is, pre-exilic, and 2T means Second Temple Period, that is, post-exilic, or LateBH. some notes: 1. The discussion on the 'external' criterion does not reflect frequency or its contribution as a mechanism for the change. It throws out the baby with the bathwater. 2. malxut shows a very dramatic change from 1T to 2T Hebrew. Reading a concordance certainly helps. One can say that malxut shifted from a rare, marignal word to a common word. It also helps to recognize that malxuto and *mluxato could result from an easy transposition of consonants. Not that we want to go that route. However, if there is one reference to 'kingdom, rule' in a book, and that word is malxut, then it does add to the 2T color of the work. Cf. Qoh 4. 3. the article claims that frequency is not a criterion but explainable by 'style'. Sorry, but that is a logical non-sequitur. And the article did mention that changes in frequency are a legitimate chronological feature in other languages. 4. In the tables, repetitions were not counted, which skews the frequency, and the listing of the features themselves were not presented which doesn't allow the reader to evaluate the correctness of the compilation, nor the weight of any feature. 5. The Iranian claims were bogus or suspect. Dt 33.2 '.sh.d.t. was not recognized by the LXX as "esh dat". That interpretation changes the ktiv and looks very much like a rabbinic midrash. Also for Isaiah razi 'trouble, woe, emaciation', there is nothing in the context to suggest that it is the Persian word raz expanded to 'my secret' 6. it did not mention the statistically verified spelling distinctions between 1T and 2T Hebrew. See point 7. 7. SBL had a session on this a couple of years ago. I was able to attend. One side waved their hands, one side made body blows. The papers are being collected and may be out this year or next. the paper by Dean Forbes on spelling statistics was of interest because it is unrelated to content or style, but does show that the MT was the preservation of a very conservative text. The 1T docs reflect a 6th century spelling, the others are later. I think that it is fair to say that people appreciated the Young, et al., work more for the opportunity to evaluate and clarify the situation than for being a credible weighing of all of the evidence. blessings 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 _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
