How might beraishit be absolute, given the shwa on the bet?

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ralph
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How might beraishit be absolute, given the shwa on the bet?

Post by ralph »

How might beraishit(Gen 1:1), be absolute, given the shwa on the bet?

I've heard it argued that beraishit is construct, because we know the translation is "in **the** beginning..........." i.e. THE beginning not A beginning. And if it were absolute, then the vowel on the bet would have to be a patah. And only a construct noun can have a bet prefix with shwa, and still mean/be translated, "in THE".

I notice though that groves wheeler, as I see in bibleworks, considers raishit in beraishit, to be absolute- @ncfsa - noun, common, feminine, singular, absolute), and the text-fabric biblical hebrew database also considers raishit in beraishit, to be absolute https://bibleol.3bmoodle.dk/text/show_t ... /Genesis/1 (clicking reishit shows state-absolute).

So how might they justify considering it absolute, given the combination of
A) The Shwa on the Bet
and
B) The translation everybody gives it as "In THE,,,", not "in A..."?

I suppose one answer could be that there's an implied noun(like 'story'), just like some other examples where there's an implied noun of fruit. So in a sense it is construct, but they classify those instances of reishit as absolute. But grammatically it behaves like a construct in that it has the bet with shva, despite meaning "The".

Note- i'm going to avoid the term "definite article" here 'cos it's ambiguous, as some on the forum say "definite article" without being clear whether they mean "written with" the definite article, or translated with but not written with. So i'm just stating what hebrew letter and vowel I am referring to e.g. Bet with shwa, or Bet with patah, and i'm stating the word "THE" when that's what I mean,and when I say "The" I always mean "The" in translation.
Ralph Zak
kwrandolph
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Re: How might beraishit be absolute, given the shwa on the bet?

Post by kwrandolph »

Dear Ralph:

First of all, recognize that the shewa is not original to the text, it was added two millennia after Biblical Hebrew was no longer spoken. Therefore, you can safely ignore it and read the text according to its context. Its context indicates that there should be a definite article.

Karl W. Randolph.
ralph
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Re: How might beraishit be absolute, given the shwa on the bet?

Post by ralph »

kwrandolph wrote:Dear Ralph:

First of all, recognize that the shewa is not original to the text, it was added two millennia after Biblical Hebrew was no longer spoken. Therefore, you can safely ignore it and read the text according to its context. Its context indicates that there should be a definite article.

Karl W. Randolph.
I know you ignore the vowels so the question is a bit meaningless under your view, but not everybody takes that view. Most people take the vowels seriously! I think you are the only person on the forum that doesn't take the vowels seriously.

If you are now taking the position that you might not take shwa existence seriously but would take other vowels seriously. The shwa can be seen as a place-marker for no vowel. So one could look at it as bet with patah vs bet without it.. But you don't take any vowels seriously so it's not just about shwa with you.

What year do you say biblical hebrew was no longer spoken? If you say around 500BCE and you say that shva was added 2000 years later, so 1500CE.. that's not really true.. Bachur/Levita around 1500CE, came up with some rules for when shva is vocal or silent, but it's understood that there were some rules for shwa before then, just hardly anybody has a clue what they were.
Ralph Zak
kwrandolph
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Re: How might beraishit be absolute, given the shwa on the bet?

Post by kwrandolph »

ralph wrote:If you are now taking the position that you might not take shwa existence seriously but would take other vowels seriously. The shwa can be seen as a place-marker for no vowel. So one could look at it as bet with patah vs bet without it.. But you don't take any vowels seriously so it's not just about shwa with you.
You’re right, it’s not just about the shewa. The original pronunciation of בראשית may have been “ba-re-a-sa-ye-te” (a hyphen between each syllable) or something similar. But today we don’t know, so that is merely a guess.
ralph wrote:What year do you say biblical hebrew was no longer spoken? If you say around 500BCE and you say that shva was added 2000 years later, so 1500CE.. that's not really true.. Bachur/Levita around 1500CE, came up with some rules for when shva is vocal or silent, but it's understood that there were some rules for shwa before then, just hardly anybody has a clue what they were.
Sorry, I miswrote. It was only after I was away from my computer and thinking over the answer that I realized that I meant 1000 when I wrote 2000. Sorry for the confusion.

Karl W. Randolph.
ralph
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Re: How might beraishit be absolute, given the shwa on the bet?

Post by ralph »

kwrandolph wrote:You’re right, it’s not just about the shewa. The original pronunciation of בראשית may have been “ba-re-a-sa-ye-te” (a hyphen between each syllable) or something similar. But today we don’t know, so that is merely a guess.
Well you are unique in thinking the vowels are a complete unknown for every word. Of course you can answer any vowel question if you think the vowels could be anything.

The question only makes sense to those that take the vowels seriously!

And by the way, say you put biblical hebrew finishing at 500BCE, and say that vowel markings came in around 500CE. Even with vowel markings coming in then, you could retain huge skepticism of vowels by saying that maybe people started pronouncing the words differently and then how could there have been an understanding that there was a vowel they could call kamatz if some people pronounced a word one way and some another way. How could they agree they were saying the same vowel.. Your vowel skepticism could long precede any vowel markings!

And why not get skeptical about vowel knowledge even in the biblical period, when for example they switched to aramaic script. perhaps around the time of the assyrian conquest. goodness knows the havoc that might have played on the hebrew. And aramaic pronunciation might have influenced hebrew pronunciation of both vowels and letters.
Ralph Zak
kwrandolph
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Re: How might beraishit be absolute, given the shwa on the bet?

Post by kwrandolph »

ralph wrote:The question only makes sense to those that take the vowels seriously!
I do take the vowels seriously. So seriously, in fact, that I don’t just blindly and unthinkingly accept the Masoretic points as being accurate. So seriously that it led me to analyze how different vowel patterns affect meter in poetry.

Meaning is more important than the Masoretic points.
ralph wrote:And by the way, say you put biblical hebrew finishing at 500BCE, and say that vowel markings came in around 500CE. Even with vowel markings coming in then, you could retain huge skepticism of vowels by saying that maybe people started pronouncing the words differently and then how could there have been an understanding that there was a vowel they could call kamatz if some people pronounced a word one way and some another way. How could they agree they were saying the same vowel.. Your vowel skepticism could long precede any vowel markings!
I haven’t studied it myself, but I’ve read that there were pronunciation and vowel changes even from late Second Temple era to the Masoretic era. My understanding is that the Masoretes were from a fairly restricted area and they developed their vowel points over a fairly short period, leading to their pointing to be pretty standardized within their system.
ralph wrote:And why not get skeptical about vowel knowledge even in the biblical period, when for example they switched to aramaic script. perhaps around the time of the assyrian conquest. goodness knows the havoc that might have played on the hebrew. And aramaic pronunciation might have influenced hebrew pronunciation of both vowels and letters.
You are speculating here. The knowledge of the archaic Hebrew font continued at least up to the beginning of the Mishnaic period. And it was never understood as being anything different from a different font, giving the same pronunciations and meanings. Further, the switch from archaic Hebrew to the Aramaic square characters, as far as I know, happened after the last writings of Tanakh were finished.

Apparently you haven’t dealt much with immigrants and their American born children. Even where the children retain knowledge of their parents’ languages, they speak the languages with an American accent. The more the language differs from English, the stronger the accent. The next generation, if there are any phones not found in English, neither are they found in the grand-child’s pronunciation of his grand-parents’ language. Now stretch that out over a thousand years, three to four generations in a century, for a language known only from writing of the consonants, while speaking a cognate language using the same writing system, what is the probability that the pronunciation used in reading is almost pure Aramaic with almost no retained Hebrew? How much was the Aramaic influenced by Greek, Latin and possibly other languages?

Now add to that that there was a major grammar change in Aramaic to a tense based grammar, so that Hebrew understanding was also changed to the new Aramaic grammar, so that by the time of the Masoretes, they assigned pronunciations according to the grammar of their time, rather than according to Biblical grammar.

Meaning is more important than the Masoretic points. Be ready to ditch the Masoretic pronunciations where they don’t make sense as far as meaning is concerned.

Karl W. Randolph.
Jemoh66
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Re: How might beraishit be absolute, given the shwa on the bet?

Post by Jemoh66 »

The only reason we know there is an option to read bereishit or bareishit is precisely because the masoretes preserved it for us in the niqqud. So they preserved the knowledge that the definite article would contract to a pathaq and be assumed by the preposition. To then dismiss the pointing and then turn around and call for an option that is only available because of our knowledge of the pointing system is absurd and self-refuting.

FYI. The Jewish scholars who translated the LXX saw no vowel there.

ΕΝ ΑΡΧΗ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν.
Jonathan E Mohler
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Jason Hare
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Re: How might beraishit be absolute, given the shwa on the bet?

Post by Jason Hare »

Jemoh66 wrote:The only reason we know there is an option to read bereishit or bareishit is precisely because the masoretes preserved it for us in the niqqud. So they preserved the knowledge that the definite article would contract to a pathaq and be assumed by the preposition. To then dismiss the pointing and then turn around and call for an option that is only available because of our knowledge of the pointing system is absurd and self-refuting.

FYI. The Jewish scholars who translated the LXX saw no vowel there.

ΕΝ ΑΡΧΗ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν.
This could be connected to Greek style rather than direct translation.
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ralph
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Re: How might beraishit be absolute, given the shwa on the bet?

Post by ralph »

jemoh wrote: FYI. The Jewish scholars who translated the LXX saw no vowel there.

ΕΝ ΑΡΧΗ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν.
(I don't know greek but I can see what words are what with google translate).

why would the greek(ΕΝ ΑΡΧΗ) be any different if there was a vowel there on the 'bet', in the hebrew? the meaning would still be "in the beginning"(english), or ΕΝ ΑΡΧΗ/"in principle"(greek), wouldn't it?
jemoh wrote: they{masoretes} preserved the knowledge that the definite article would contract to a pathaq and be assumed by the preposition
do you have any other example of a noun that is absolute, not construct, with a preposition with no vowel, where it's "in the"? and not "in a". i.e. the meaning is definite article but the definite article is not written in.
Jason Hare wrote: ΕΝ ΑΡΧΗ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν.
This could be connected to Greek style rather than direct translation.
What do you mean? Greek isn't going to copy the hebrew vowels on anything other than placenames(which I understand it transliterates or transcribes) (and perhaps peoples' names?).
Ralph Zak
Schubert
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Re: How might beraishit be absolute, given the shwa on the bet?

Post by Schubert »

Jason Hare wrote:
Jemoh66 wrote:
ΕΝ ΑΡΧΗ ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν.
This could be connected to Greek style rather than direct translation.
I agree with Jason. Greek had its own grammatical and stylistic rules and conventions about when (and when not) to use a definite article.
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