I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.
Your reasons don’t convince. What we go by is evidence, evidence that informs reason.Galena wrote:As far as this thread is concerned I have been carried away by trying to appeal to reason,
I have found rabbinic sources to be a bruised reed, for their reasons are all too often more theological than linguistic. Another reason why your appeal to reason doesn’t convince.Galena wrote:due to my lack of training I am not equipped to argue professionally as others here might well be able to. Though by reading and searching on what others have said through the years I have formed a perspective, I also turn to Rabbinical sources for explanations, especially on language issues.
Secondly, rabbinic Hebrew is a cognate language to Biblical Hebrew, it is not the same. Rabbinic Hebrew even at its earliest has a different grammar, many words have different meanings, so that if you depend on rabbinic Hebrew for an accurate understanding of Biblical Hebrew, you will be led astray. The information in this paragraph I learned from others, as I do not know rabbinic Hebrew myself.
Who “changed the letters to make a verb”?Galena wrote:So I am eager to deal with each case as it arises (as I have done in the past), so I would like to keep this thread focused on examples, dealing case by case.
Personally it was easy for me to be convinced that there is here a mistake by the masoretes, in fact I can understand why on this occasion they changed the letters to make a verb.Karl said: For example, in Psalm 22:17 the MT has the word כארי which means “as a lion”, a noun. But the syntax and grammar indicate that that word should be a verb, not a noun. The LXX has it as a verb. A scrap of manuscript from the time of the DSS was found that has כארו which is a verb. כאר has the meaning of to distort, as in twisting into unnatural shapes, as would be done when a spike is pounded through a wrist crushing nerves and tendons. So, do we go with the MT which has a nonsense reading, or all the others which all agree?
The evidence is that somebody changed one letter to make a noun. That’s why most translations have gone with a verb here. As far as who that somebody was, we don’t know, but it’s easy to think that he had a worn or defective manuscript before him, and made an inadvertent mistake, not a deliberate action.
This is very subjective, and appears to be influenced by modern poetry. Secondly the Masoretic points at times make Hebrew poetry into a jumbled mess, while an unpointed text indicates a clear reading.Galena wrote: I have read a number of arguments on both sides this morning, reading carefully the for and against. Rabbinical, christian and neutral sources. For me it's simple, it is split 55:45 neither side can produce the definitive answer, and I respect both sides and see clearly that neither can prove anything absolutely, except that I feel the noun community does have an edge, and so as a result of this I turn to my last line of beliefs:
1. My own sensitivity to poetry and what I have read about how poetry can be written;
That reason could be a simple mistake.Galena wrote:2. The belief that it is written like that for a reason, even if I do not comprehend fully.
The same thing can be said of the MT. Or more accurately the texts that preceded the MT and upon which the MT was based.Galena wrote:2. My slant towards rejecting the DSS and LXX as having the final authority and my belief that this has often proven to be man imposing his judgement on a script that he did not fully understand and so amended.
When this argument stands alone, it is something to consider.Galena wrote:4. Older does not mean more accurate, I have made this clear.
But in combination with other clues, then the other clues need be considered as well.
This is off topic for Biblical Hebrew, but the reasons I prefer the Majority Text of the New Testament are:
1) as a linguist, I noticed that it preserves clues to the Galilean accent that are lost in Vaticanus, Sinaiticus and other ancient, surviving manuscripts upon which Hort and Westcott based their edition.
2) ancient scholars upon their evidences chose it as a superior text, which is why a majority of manuscripts follow its pattern.
3) just because the surviving manuscripts are older doesn’t mean that they are more accurate. Those oldest surviving manuscripts may have survived precisely because they were inferior, therefore not used as much, while the superior ones were worn out and copied.
Other people may have other reasons, but those are the ones I find most convincing.
Now back to Hebrew.
When considering the MT, DSS and LXX, we don’t just blindly prefer any one over the others, just as in my example above as to why I prefer the Majority Text. Some of the DSS are poor, others are excellent. Most of the DSS are quite fragmentary, so fragmentary that as a whole they comprise only a small percentage of the Tanakh. So when considering the DSS, we also look at their quality, on a case by case basis evaluating how much weight it should carry.
The same evaluation can be applied to the MT. Yes, the ben Asher family was very careful, but even they recognized that they were working with defective manuscripts. That’s why they had the Kethib / Qere pairs, their points often don’t follow the consonantal text, among others.
Secondly the ben Asher family based their evaluations, hence their points, on rabbinic Hebrew which, as mentioned above, is a cognate language to Biblical Hebrew, so at times it led them astray. That’s why reading an unpointed text within Biblical Hebrew often leads to a different understanding than that informed by rabbinic Hebrew. Rabbinic Hebrew is what you access when you consult rabbis.
The linguistic uses of Biblical Hebrew, grammar, syntax, definition of words, context with the rest of the verse and surrounding verses, all anticipate that this should be a verb. Ancient evidences indicate that this is a verb, a verb that is also used in another verse (it doesn’t mean “pierce”, rather “distort”). The MT is one against many with the MT appearing to be defective. This is not blindly saying that the older is better, rather it evaluates other evidences as well, other evidences in which the MT comes up short.Galena wrote:After reading all the evidence and arguments I see no problem with the lack of a verb,…
While this is true of 20th century Western poetry, it wasn’t true even of earlier Western poetry. And the evidence is that it wasn’t true of ancient Hebrew poetry when reading an unpointed text. The biggest problem for students learning Biblical Hebrew as a second language when reading Biblical Hebrew poetry is the large vocabulary used.Galena wrote:…But poetry often surprises us with the unexpected,…
It flows just as well, if not better, in having כארו as a verb.Galena wrote: The following verse: אֲסַפֵּר כָּל־עַצְמוֹתָי הֵמָּה יַבִּיטוּ יִרְאוּ־בִי I count all my bones, they, they look at me they gaze at me appears to be a naturally flowing idea from where everyone has stood still in the previous verse.
This is silly. Using your image above, without the skeleton of grammar, language sinks into a shapeless mess that means nothing. We need to consider grammar, syntax, context, as well as words, otherwise the words have no meaning. It is grammar, syntax, context and definitions that give words their meanings. They also inform when words are being used improperly. We need to take the whole language, not parts that fit our preconceptions, when evaluating what is said.Galena wrote:Sometimes, occasionally, in the face of difficulty, we need to remove our grammatical spectacles and allow scripture to speak, and just to walk with it, when the hebrew does not make sense then I am failing to grasp, just for that particular moment, the mindset of the writer. Grammar is only a skeleton, its the flesh and sinews that give it life.
Karl W. Randolph.Galena wrote:kind regards
chris
