Karl: The C-V theory is intriguing, but also appears to have some glaring difficulties. Since there are only 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet, there would only be one possible vowel following each consonant. Do you find such a theory workable? When the vowel points were added to the text, there were, of course, various vowels that could attach to each consonant. In addition, there are C-V-C syllables. Wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that the vowel pointing represented actual pronunciations in use in the Hebrew, rather than an artificial system? How do you get from a syllabary, with only one vowel per consonant, to the much more varied pronunciation schema found in the pointed text? Regards, Ted Brownstein In a message dated 7/12/2012 8:32:17 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
Yigal: Thank you for your quick response. The claim that I heard of has its roots in the temple of Karnak, with the claim of 300 gold shields being carved in the walls. I did a Google search and found a few sites that repeated this claim. http://www.specialtyinterests.net/thutmose.html This is a site that I have found as questionable. This page actually shows an photograph of the symbols claimed to show that there were 300 shields collected. I found a couple of other sites that basically repeated the claims from this site. As I wrote before, I take the claims of this site with a big grain of salt, neither accepting nor rejecting its claims. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2012/03/02/feedback-shishak-and-meg iddoalso points to Thutmosis III being Shishaq. Again reference is made to 300 gold shields. http://www.hshideaway.com/chap15.htm gives a detailed explanation as to why the image should be read as 300 gold shields. Solomon made 300 gold shields 1 Kings 10:17, 2 Chronicles 9:16. The Tel Amarna letters show a political and social situation consistant with the divided kingdom period of Biblical history. Now the linguistic reason I ask this question: Previously I mentioned on this list that I suspected that the Hebrew alphabet was in reality a syllabary, with each letter standing for a syllable consisting of a consonant followed by a vowel. My reason was from reading the Hebrew text using the pre-Babylonian Exile font on my computer. Because that font totally lacks any pronunciation dots found in the medieval MSS, it led me to question the multiple pronunciations for BGD-KPT letters, making many words impossible to pronounce without adding vowels. Later I noticed that poetry seems to have a rhythm when each letter is pronounced as a consonant followed by a vowel. The latest is that I had a chance to look at Waltke & O’Connor and in their discussion on the roots of Hebrew. cited the Amarna texts as evidence that the language of Canaan at the time these letters were written appeared to be consonant followed by a vowel. Different evidence, but coming to the same conclusion. If Thutmosis III was Shishaq as proposed by the sites above, that will indicate that the pronunciation of Biblical Hebrew probably continued to have a consonant-vowel construction throughout the pre-Babylonian Exile period, as the Amarna letters were written during the divided kingdom period. I’m not 100% convinced of the theory that Biblical Hebrew had the pronunciation of consonant / vowel, not yet, but the more I see of the evidence, the more it appears that way. Thanks again, Karl W. Randolph. _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
