Egyptian and Ethiopian Languages

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Jason Hare
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Re: Egyptian and Ethiopian Languages

Post by Jason Hare »

kwrandolph wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 6:07 pm “Tense” refers to different forms that code for time reference. Biblical Hebrew lacks such forms.

However, use of the language through contextual clues indicates time references, but those are not the same as “tense”.

Jason, I think we are on the same page on this question, just disagree on the terms to use.

Karl W. Randolph.
There is no one-to-one correspondence of form to tense, for sure. However, Hebrew certainly uses the qatal in certain ways and the yiqtol in other ways, not to mention the so-called “consecutive” forms. Certain forms are used for certain modes of expression, and mood must be taken into account. I don’t like the sense that comes across that form is completely irrelevant to tense. That simply isn’t the case.
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kwrandolph
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Re: Egyptian and Ethiopian Languages

Post by kwrandolph »

Jason Hare wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 7:26 pm
kwrandolph wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 6:07 pm “Tense” refers to different forms that code for time reference. Biblical Hebrew lacks such forms.

However, use of the language through contextual clues indicates time references, but those are not the same as “tense”.

Jason, I think we are on the same page on this question, just disagree on the terms to use.

Karl W. Randolph.
There is no one-to-one correspondence of form to tense, for sure. However, Hebrew certainly uses the qatal in certain ways and the yiqtol in other ways, not to mention the so-called “consecutive” forms.
That is my point, that these declensions impart specific meanings, though not necessarily the same meanings as are found in Indo-European languages.
Jason Hare wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 7:26 pm I don’t like the sense that comes across that form is completely irrelevant to tense. That simply isn’t the case.
Just because the wayyiqtol is used overwhelmingly in past-referent narrative does not make it a past tense marker. It is also used for present and future references. When we look at the meanings imparted in its uses outside of past-referent narrative, some of its meanings applies equally well to past-referent narrative without it being a past tense marker. I use this as an example.

When the same form is used for future, present and past references, the definition of tense given by SIL excludes that form as having tense. A “grammatical category” is either a special form, or a consistent combination of words, to indicate a certain meaning. Biblical Hebrew lacks both of those for time references, hence no tense.

Just because Biblical Hebrew lacks grammatically recognizable forms to indicate tense, does not mean that Biblical Hebrew doesn’t recognize and indicate time references. The time references are just indicated non-grammatically.

Both you and I grew up speaking a language especially rich in tense markers, so it is hard for us to conceive of a language that has no tense. In fact, European languages as a group are strongly tense based. Medieval Hebrew that I was taught in class is also tense based. Psychologically it’s difficult for us to admit that a language can lack tense. But the evidence is there that Biblical Hebrew lacks tense.

Karl W. Randolph.
Chris Watts
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Re: Egyptian and Ethiopian Languages

Post by Chris Watts »

kwrandolph wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 2:03 pm
Chris Watts wrote: Mon Nov 01, 2021 1:10 pm Trust you to crawl out of the quagmire by referring to a document written by Adam.
chris watts
And what do you mean by that? Is that a faith statement?
Karl W. Randolph.
Adam to Moses maybe 2500 years - that is a very long time for a piece of paper to last, unless of course there were many scribes after Adam continually copyying his original to end up just in the nick of time for Noah. Thousands of unknown parameters and a darn huge flood. And you think that Moses took a scroll on board written by Adam? Oh and that poor soul, that poor faithful soul to God's word who kept Adam's words faithfully and managed to travel from somewhere far away or maybe close to Noah, passed the scroll onto Noah but that last scribe was condemned to death and drowned, refused permission to enter the Ark for some unknown reason.


The only cceptable explanation for what Moses wrote was the good old tried and tested method of Father to son, generation to generation story of faith and story telling to pass on history. And I still insist that Moses uesed participles to refer to the present of his day, not something that was gone and lost forever, otherwise he definitely would have phrased it in such a way as to leave us with no misunderstanding as he did in Genesis 6:4 when he used the contextual and qal perfect to refer to the past.........הַנְּפִלִים הָיוּ בָאָרֶץ בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם

As for literary evidence you will have to explain this one please since it would be fair for me to know what you are referring to.

So the only way out of this is to say Adam wrote it? Did Adam write about Assyria and Cush? What about Moses referring to the fact that there is Gold and Bedillium and Onyx in the land of Havilah? Havilah, Asshur and Cush were placed between these rivers meaning that while geographical and geological features would have changed in some parts and the intensity of change varied considerably, the fact remains that the basic structure remained intact within this region and the rivers could still be identified even if there were slight shifts in flows or whatever. For example, maybe the Red Sea could have formed a part of the Pison albeit narrower who knows? Verse 14 Moses places Hiddekel East of Assyria, clearly a geographical position and hardly something Adam would have written.

My original comment that ignited this and the issue I am interested in is Cush and his history and his geographical dispersion, this is what I am researching at the moment, (this being started by passages in scripture that refer to Cush in ways that ignite a question about its geographical location within that particular context of scripture and for a moment I needed to know the language differences) and it became clear from sources both biblical and extra-biblical that Cush was NOT only a geographical land in East Africa south Egypt in the days of Isaiah and Jeremiah, but that it also could refer to the Cush of Babylonia and Assyria and Midian, descendants of Cush were first settled throughout the region of the Euphrates and Tigirs, some moved and settled in Midian and Yemen and eventually moved to what we now call Sudan and Ethiopia, but Ethiopia is NOT Cush as many biblical commentators insist - I was brought up on this for years. My other observation that Cush, Assyria and Havillah are mentioned, Cush as the African Cush was not the land meant in Genesis 2, but Babylonia, Midian and Yemen areas were the lands referred to when Cush was mentioned.

So while I do not mind to discuss the Four Rivers of Gen 2, I want to stay on topic also.

A Sidenote : This is one article I managed to dig up quickly, The point here is that while it does not exist today, the idea that these rivers still surrounded the known biblical areas are of interest. https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg ... ian-river/

Just dug this up as well, have not read it yet but will later. https://books.google.ie/books?id=c2_oDQ ... ia&f=false

Chris Watts
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Jason Hare
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Re: Egyptian and Ethiopian Languages

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Chris Watts wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 7:01 am The only cceptable explanation for what Moses wrote was the good old tried and tested method of Father to son, generation to generation story of faith and story telling to pass on history.
This is what I think of Hesiod’s Theogony. The only acceptable explanation for creation myths, whether they deal with the creation of the gods or the creation of the world, is that there was a long tradition that had come from one generation to the next that deserves no scrutiny or skepticism. That’s quite obviously the only acceptable explanation for where myths come from.

There are plenty of valid explanations for the mythological portions of the Bible. How can your thinking on this be so non-critical that you really think that the only possible explanation is that there was a long oral tradition that held the stories in tact from generation to generation? You really think that the myths cannot be better explained as myth, which is a powerful expression of the human mind? Did mankind only tell stories among other peoples, but the ancient Hebrews (who were surrounded by mythmaking peoples) were somehow unsusceptible to this very human tendency?

I simply don’t understand how what you wrote here could ever be considered reasonable.
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Chris Watts
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Re: Egyptian and Ethiopian Languages

Post by Chris Watts »

Jason Hare wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 8:46 am
Chris Watts wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 7:01 am The only cceptable explanation for what Moses wrote was the good old tried and tested method of Father to son, generation to generation story of faith and story telling to pass on history.
There are plenty of valid explanations for the mythological portions of the Bible. How can your thinking on this be so non-critical that you really think that the only possible explanation is that there was a long oral tradition that held the stories in tact from generation to generation? You really think that the myths cannot be better explained as myth, which is a powerful expression of the human mind? Did mankind only tell stories among other peoples, but the ancient Hebrews (who were surrounded by mythmaking peoples) were somehow unsusceptible to this very human tendency?

I simply don’t understand how what you wrote here could ever be considered reasonable.
I believe that there are two groups of people that contribute to this forum: Both obviously interested in the Hebrew language...

1. Those that consider the scriptures to be nothing more than antiquated cultural thinking surrounded by Mythological intrigue with a dose of Historical innacurracy, sprinkled with a little bit of verifiable fact...

2. Those that believe the scriptures to be infallible word of one and only one God.

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Jason Hare
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Re: Egyptian and Ethiopian Languages

Post by Jason Hare »

Chris Watts wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 10:09 am I believe that there are two groups of people that contribute to this forum: Both obviously interested in the Hebrew language...

1. Those that consider the scriptures to be nothing more than antiquated cultural thinking surrounded by Mythological intrigue with a dose of Historical innacurracy, sprinkled with a little bit of verifiable fact...

2. Those that believe the scriptures to be infallible word of one and only one God.

Chris watts
There are those who believe that chocolate cake is the best cake ever.

There are those who prefer other flavors.

Why divide people up into groups that are aimed at contention?
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Chris Watts
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Re: Egyptian and Ethiopian Languages

Post by Chris Watts »

Jason Hare wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 2:17 pm
Chris Watts wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 10:09 am I believe that there are two groups of people that contribute to this forum: Both obviously interested in the Hebrew language...

1. Those that consider the scriptures to be nothing more than antiquated cultural thinking surrounded by Mythological intrigue with a dose of Historical innacurracy, sprinkled with a little bit of verifiable fact...

2. Those that believe the scriptures to be infallible word of one and only one God.

Chris watts
There are those who believe that chocolate cake is the best cake ever.

There are those who prefer other flavors.

Why divide people up into groups that are aimed at contention?
That was far from my purpose Jason. You questioned why I was un-critical of Genesis (I presume), and I thought I gave a reasonable answer without delving into specifics or crossing a theological line. It just appears reasonable to suggest that there are those who will not question the accuracy of Biblical record, and those that will view the Biblical record with a critical eye because their foundation will be on Historical records and what can be proved and what is empirical. In other words what can not be understood, or falls outside of human experience or logc will most likely not be accepted. However I am of the opinion that this is God's word and anything that falls outside of what is commonly accepted and learned as fathomable through a collective world experience I do not discard as myth or absurd. Does this clarify my comment above?

chris watts
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Re: Egyptian and Ethiopian Languages

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Chris Watts wrote: Tue Nov 02, 2021 2:30 pm That was far from my purpose Jason. You questioned why I was un-critical of Genesis (I presume), and I thought I gave a reasonable answer without delving into specifics or crossing a theological line. It just appears reasonable to suggest that there are those who will not question the accuracy of Biblical record, and those that will view the Biblical record with a critical eye because their foundation will be on Historical records and what can be proved and what is empirical. In other words what can not be understood, or falls outside of human experience or logc will most likely not be accepted. However I am of the opinion that this is God's word and anything that falls outside of what is commonly accepted and learned as fathomable through a collective world experience I do not discard as myth or absurd. Does this clarify my comment above?

chris watts
Have you read other writings from ancient peoples? Do you believe everything that they wrote in their books? If the Iliad had said that a donkey spoke to its rider, would you insist that it be understood literally? Or, is that a case of special pleading for the biblical text? I don’t think that literal understanding of a text means that you “accept” the text to some degree more than someone who reads it non-literally or as part of a system of moral lessons. Anyone who reads the commentaries of Philo of Alexandria or of Nachmanides cannot but come away with the impression that they accepted and venerated the text, but they certainly didn’t read it literally.

I’ve devoted years to reading and understanding the text of the Bible. I’m not a great scholar by any stretch, but the text is extremely important in my life. I used to approach it as a fundamentalist, and I am now much more free in my approach, but the Bible has always held a central place in my life and thought. I don’t feel the need to take everything literally or as historical truth in order to keep the Bible where it is in my estimation.
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Chris Watts
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Re: Egyptian and Ethiopian Languages

Post by Chris Watts »

Hallo Jason,

Now then, I don't know about Balaam's little chin wag with 'Ee-Oor' that day but this dialogue between you and me has me a little perplexed. Regardless of our seperate perspectives on the biblical text I want to know why my remark here :
The only cceptable explanation for what Moses wrote was the good old tried and tested method of Father to son, generation to generation story of faith and story telling to pass on history.
ignited a contentious response from you?

I would have thought that much of what Moses wrote in Genesis, the creation, the geneologies, Abraham etc would have been handed down to him in one of three ways OR a combination of all three:
1. By other documents
2. By word of mouth generation to generation
3. Twiddling his thumbs and dreaming up stories to fill in the blanks

So why was number two above a problem? After all, I said absolutely nothing other than referring constantly to the 4 rivers and Cush, this was the subject that was temporarily interupted by Karl with his question as you know, to which I replied, to which you then questioned my inability to be critical.

So I am rather thrown a little off course by this dialogue. The reason being is that me taking things literally has actually nothing to do with the 4 rivers and Cush unless of course you do not take this particular record as fact then I will understand ok.

Kindest regards
Chris watts
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Jason Hare
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Re: Egyptian and Ethiopian Languages

Post by Jason Hare »

Chris Watts wrote: Wed Nov 03, 2021 1:54 pm I would have thought that much of what Moses wrote in Genesis, the creation, the geneologies, Abraham etc would have been handed down to him in one of three ways OR a combination of all three:
1. By other documents
2. By word of mouth generation to generation
3. Twiddling his thumbs and dreaming up stories to fill in the blanks
It’s the dismissiveness of these statements that I find troubling. It is not the case that it either happened as you think or it was silly. “Twiddling his thumbs and dreaming up stories to fill in the blanks” is dismissive of any alternative to your way of thinking. Do you not think that’s so?
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