Before answering your specific questions, how is the best way to learn a foreign language? Yes, you need to start somewhere, but after getting the basics, what method works best? Continue reading about the language, what scholars say about it? Or by plunging into the language and just letting it flow over oneself, getting used to its cadences, ways of expression and unique quirks?
I started with Weingreen, which is why I mention him. I also had the dictionary by Gesenius. But early on, I got the concordance by Lisowski. Early on I noticed that many glosses in Lisowski differed from those in Gesenius. When comparing glosses to actual uses listed in Lisowski, I found that Lisowski’s glosses tend to be more accurate.
I plunged into the language, and let it flow over me. How many scholars have read Tanakh, starting in Genesis, and reading to the end of 2 Chronicles, even once? Five times? Ten times? Does one need to read it completely through to get a PhD?
After reading Tanakh through a few times, I came to realize that what I had learned in class from Weingreen differed from the Hebrew language before me on the pages of Tanakh. Most definitely in the treatment of verbs. I have come to prefer the immersion method of learning foreign languages, and that is basically what I have done to learn Biblical Hebrew. Is the immersion method perfect? Can you think of a better way to learn a foreign language?
Jason Hare wrote: ↑Fri Apr 01, 2022 9:38 am
kwrandolph wrote: ↑Fri Apr 01, 2022 8:28 amI think a lot of “not as perfect” is connected with modern people not knowing Biblical Hebrew. They may think they know it, they may even have PhDs in Hebrew studies and may even teach it in universities, but the truth is that they don’t really know Biblical Hebrew.
I hope you can see that the same could be said of you and your knowledge of Hebrew. I haven’t seen anything to indicate that you know Hebrew through your method better than anyone else who used Weingreen, Gesenius, Seow, Lambdin, Van Pelt, or whatever introductory grammar in their learning. In fact, I can only see deficiencies in your approach to the learning of Hebrew language, and you have certainly not submitted any systematic approach to learning Hebrew for the critique of professionals. I get the feeling that you think you’re the only one suitably qualified to read the Hebrew Bible.
Which of those introductory grammars disagree with Weingreen?
Jason Hare wrote: ↑Fri Apr 01, 2022 9:38 am
kwrandolph wrote: ↑Fri Apr 01, 2022 8:28 amThey cut their teeth on Weingreen and imbibed deeply of Gesenius and BDB, not realizing that what they studied is medieval Hebrew, not Biblical Hebrew. Then when they look at Tanakh—it was written in Biblical, not medieval Hebrew—they don’t understand it perfectly so they think the text is corrupted.
You keep saying that Weingreen and Gesenius represent medieval Hebrew. I don’t think anyone would agree with you, and I vehemently disagree with you.
Well, they don’t represent Biblical Hebrew. So what sort of Hebrew do you call it?
Jason Hare wrote: ↑Fri Apr 01, 2022 9:38 am
kwrandolph wrote: ↑Fri Apr 01, 2022 8:28 amFor example, I recently read a paper by someone named David Clines who supposedly “found” new vocabulary in Tanakh, but when I read his examples, I found that most of them ignore context and/or don’t make sense. Another of his papers has “translations” that may make sense to him, but depend on his idiosyncratic treatment of vocabulary.
I assume that this “someone” (I love how you are so dismissive of Hebrew language academics) is the David Clines who edited The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (Sheffield Academic, 1993). I’m not making an argument from authority, but I don’t think his arguments should be summarily dismissed. There are clearly words and phrases in the Tanach that still need investigation, and there’s no reason other than bias against his methodologies that would cause anyone to think that this “someone” is really a “no one” or somehow idiosyncratic in his treatment of the biblical Hebrew lexicon.
I don’t know the guy from Adam. All I have to go on is that name listed as the author of the papers I read. Some of the ideas contained in the papers are weird.
Jason Hare wrote: ↑Fri Apr 01, 2022 9:38 am
kwrandolph wrote: ↑Fri Apr 01, 2022 8:28 amI don’t think anyone understands Tanakh perfectly. But does that justify willy-nilly proposing new vocabulary? Or claim that the text is corrupted because it doesn’t follow the patterns taught in class? Or do deeper study into why one may not understand the text as written?
When you make statements like the above (underlined), it almost seems like you may have a streak of humility. Then I remember that this is just a way of saying that no one knows any better than you, recalling that your learning supersedes that of all others who have allowed things such as cognate languages within the Semitic family and the diachronistic examination of the natural evolution of the language to warp their ability to understand the language. I should keep that in mind, though.
One of the problems in dealing with a “dead” language, where there are no native speakers, is that when one comes across phrases, ways of saying things that one doesn’t understand, is that there are no native speakers of that language who can clarify them. That also goes for words used only once or only a few times, where context doesn’t clarify what was meant. Cognate languages may give a workable meaning, may lead one down the wrong path, so they can’t be trusted.
The same is true of using the language at a different time in its development.
Karl W. Randolph.