George:

This is getting a bit off topic. I brought history up earlier in connection
with understanding how the Amarna tablets give clues as to the
pronunciation of Biblical Hebrew—at that time I mentioned how a list of the
booty that Thutmosis II brought back from his conquests included some of
the treasures that the Bible lists as Solomon’s.

I have gotten from several sources that the Amarna tablets fit best the
iron age Levant, from around 800 BC ± 100 years, so my dating is consistant
with others. The professional university historians who have to toe the
historical orthodoxy line in order to keep their jobs are the main ones who
disagree.

On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 11:25 PM, George Athas <[email protected]>wrote:

>   Karl,
>
>  Your chronology just doesn't match that of anyone else, so all I'll say
> is that you have a massive uphill battle on your hands convincing anyone
> that Ugarit was in the Iron Age and was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar.
>
> All the reports I’ve read on Ugarit is that it is dated by
cross-referencing it with Egyptian history, in particular with the reigns
of Raamsis II and his son. Therefore, if Raamsis II is another name for
Necho who killed King Josiah, then Ugarit is also late. Has to be.

I never said that Ugarit was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, all I said is
that it was destroyed shortly after Jerusalem was destroyed by
Nebuchadnezzar. I have never speculated about who might have destroyed
Ugarit.


>  In terms of the use of ירה, you have to let context and function set the
> meaning.
>

Exactly, but not limited to that. As both Rolf and I assert, words have a
central meaning recognized by its users, with fuzziness around the edges.
Words don’t have one meaning in one context, and a radically different one
in another. Especially when one understands them according to the action
involved. The only exceptions are homonyms, or in Hebrew homographs.


> Occasionally, a word is used idiomatically in a way that departs from its
> standard meaning. For example, in English we talk about 'falling pregnant',
> even though no actual fall is involved at all. It's just idiomatic.
>

I guess that idiom must be Australian, I’ve never heard of it before.
Never. In other words, dialectal? It certainly isn’t standard English.


> I guess when you talk about a city or building or the like, ירה means
> 'construction' or something to that effect. I don'r want to constrain the
> meaning of ירה to what someone may have decided it means in other contexts.
> In this particular context, it seems to work OK.
>

It “seems to work OK”, but so do other definitions. So which one do you
choose and why? This sounds like a prescription for linguistic anarchy.

Recognizing that each term has a central, unified semantic range, the job
of the lexicographer is to try to find the central, unified action and how
far is the length and breadth of the action included in the term.

>
>
>  *GEORGE ATHAS*
> *Dean of Research,*
> *Moore Theological College *(moore.edu.au)
> *Sydney, Australia*
> *
> *
>

Karl W. Randolph.
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