Nir: On Fri, Jan 11, 2013 at 7:19 AM, Nir cohen - Prof. Mat. <[email protected]>wrote:
> karl, > > טוב מראה עינים מהלך־נפשׁ גם־זה הבל ורעות רוח > > 1. i think you should include with your questions an explanation > why you reject the usual interpretations, which remains an enigma > for most of us. i personally see nothing wrong with them here, that > would require a total grammatical reshuffle of the clause. > I’m not rejecting it as much as saying it has problems, problems also recognized by others. For example, the ESV has a very different translation than the LXX. By the way, what grammatical reshuffle of the clause do you think is required? > > 2. the formula TOV (noun1) M-(noun2) is the usual comparative in > hebrew, especially late BH and talmudic. in my opinion it fits > perfectly the available timing evidence for a late qohelet. > also note that HLK occurs here as a noun in smixut. > TWB as a comparative is used also in early BH, so it’s not a time indicator for when it was written. And in all times the Mem prefix is appended to that which it is compared. Yes, I noticed from the context, that HLK is a noun. A noun referring to the action of going about. > > 3. also GM-ZH in versicle b indicates reference to a noun, not a verb. > but, oddly, it refers to a SINGLE noun, though TWO are mentioned. > In this verse, the “noun” is the comparison that makes up the first half of the verse. > perhaps this was the background for your rejection in item 1. but > this is solved if e.g. you put versicle a in quotation marks! > as to versicle a, i suggest two possible readings: > > "eye evidence (objective) is better than mental cogitation (subjective)" > > but this would perhaps put it in the 17th century AD! or: > > "one should prefer the senses to being absorbed with thoughts": > > this sounds more suitable to an early post-exilic book. but the important > element in both is the quotation mark around them. thus, ZH refers not to > any > of the two nouns, but to versicle a as a unit. > Exactly, so we’re agreed on the second half of the verse. But how do you get “being absorbed with thoughts” from HLK NP$? > > nir cohen > Karl W. Randolph.
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