Seeking clarifiaction - The Prefixed Vav - Posted 2019

[Chris Watts]

Karl said :

As for the Masoretes, many times their points indicate a different meaning than the consonantal text. Other times they are just plain wrong. I have stopped looking at their points a long time ago so I can no longer off the top of my head give examples of what I speak, other than a couple of places.

Ok, let's make this less painful. Since you said that you have read the scripture 10 to 15 times right through, there will be things that stick in your head, so please give me examples where the vowel pointing of the text lends to a different meaning than what you believe it should read.


Chris watts

[talmid56]

That sounds like a reasonable request to me.

[Jason Hare]

That passage has a mixture of Qatals and Yiqtols, even Waw-prefixed Yiqtols, and they all refer to present, continuous time. That’s not what I was taught in class using Weingreen.

I don’t think you were taught what you think you were taught.

[talmid56]

The claim by these scholars is that Hebrew was still natively spoken until about AD 300. Check the definition of "vernacular". It does not mean that other languages were not spoken in Israel at the time, or in NT times. Evidence points to a multilingual environment, which included Hebrew alongside Aramaic and Koine Greek.

[kwrandolph]

Karl said :

As for the Masoretes, many times their points indicate a different meaning than the consonantal text. Other times they are just plain wrong. I have stopped looking at their points a long time ago so I can no longer off the top of my head give examples of what I speak, other than a couple of places.

Ok, let's make this less painful. Since you said that you have read the scripture 10 to 15 times right through, there will be things that stick in your head, so please give me examples where the vowel pointing of the text lends to a different meaning than what you believe it should read.


Chris watts

I read elsewhere that the pointing of Proverbs 1:19 considers the two central word as a compound verb:

כן ארחות כל-בצע בצע את-נפש בעליו יקח

Actually they are two nouns. The first בצע is a participle refers to the person who take an unjust cut which closes the first part of the verse, the second בצע is a shegolate noun opening the second part of the verse that refers to the unjust cut itself.

We discussed this here on this forum, which is why I remember it now, Psalm 22:17 כארי is wrongly pointed “as a lion”, rather it is a plural participle of כאר in construct with the following nouns.

It has been so long since I last looked at the points, that quite frankly I don’t remember them. The text that I read doesn’t have any points.

Karl W. Randolph.

[kwrandolph]

The claim by these scholars is that Hebrew was still natively spoken until about AD 300. Check the definition of "vernacular". It does not mean that other languages were not spoken in Israel at the time, or in NT times. Evidence points to a multilingual environment, which included Hebrew along side Aramaic and Koine Greek.

I have seen that claim, but those who make the claim provide no evidence for it. Meanwhile Ezra and Nehemiah before 400 BC give evidence that Hebrew was no longer spoken as a native tongue, rather it assumed the same role as did Latin in medieval Europe.

Karl W. Randolph.

[Jason Hare]

We discussed this here on this forum, which is why I remember it now, Psalm 22:17 כארי is wrongly pointed “as a lion”, rather it is a plural participle of כאר in construct with the following nouns.

If only you could point that verse to show us how you read it, since just saying “it’s a participle of כאר” (a verb that simply doesn’t exist anywhere else in extant Hebrew) doesn’t express to us how you pronounce it or think it should be read. Could you at least spell it in English letters? Do you read it as kōʾărê (assuming כֹּאֲרֵי יָדַי וְרַגְלַי)? Can you just give us a rough pronunciation so that we can understand how you read the text? Have you ever heard anyone else make such a suggestion, or do you know of any other use of such a verb?

[Chris Watts]

Karl said :

As for the Masoretes, many times their points indicate a different meaning than the consonantal text. Other times they are just plain wrong. I have stopped looking at their points a long time ago so I can no longer off the top of my head give examples of what I speak, other than a couple of places.

Ok, let's make this less painful. Since you said that you have read the scripture 10 to 15 times right through, there will be things that stick in your head, so please give me examples where the vowel pointing of the text lends to a different meaning than what you believe it should read.
Chris watts

Karl Replied : I read elsewhere that the pointing of Proverbs 1:19 considers the two central word as a compound verb:

כן ארחות כל-בצע בצע את-נפש בעליו יקח

Actually they are two nouns. The first בצע is a participle refers to the person who take an unjust cut which closes the first part of the verse, the second בצע is a shegolate noun opening the second part of the verse that refers to the unjust cut itself

Karl W. Randolph.

1. Then please provide me with a translation of Prov 1:19 according to your interpretation.

2. You have provided absolutely no evidence that comes even close to suggesting that the Jewish grammarians, the scribes, the early and middle Medieval Hebraists have handed down to us a faulty Hebrew grammar, and misguided pronunciation. Neither can you provide any evidence to support your claims that the Rabbis and Jewish learners of Tanach got things so wrong that you have to correct them.

May I remind you that every scribe and copyist and grammarian was not only fully capable, but knew his scripture and his language better than any of us could ever come close to. That also their zeal and unremitting care for both accuracy and professionalism can never be brought into question, ever. That to even miss a single letter, or to insert an incorrect vowel they would throw the page away and re-start that hand written page all over again. That their reverence and unbreakable determination to pass on the words of Moses and the prophets was a God-inspired endeavour and their grammar was a God-Inspired monumental task - sustained over hundreds of years for the benefit of the rest of the world, so that God's Words would be carried down with their intended meanings, this also includes all the ambiguities and mysteries and double and triple interpretations that God allowed to become infused into His Word for purpose and for teaching.

As for the Ketiv nd Qeri, they themselves prove the reluctance of the scribe to alter the text in any way, but also to provide the alternative that they believed might need correcting. As for your critique on vowel pointing, the word 'Garage' could be pointed in two different ways - and since I am European English and not USA english I would put the stress on the first syllable and have two closed syllables. The USA puts the stress on the second syllable with a Long Vowel which would make it open. My 'Watch' would have an 'O' sound under the 'A' but the USA 'Watch' would make the 'A' sound a longer syllable like an 'AR', so how to choose? Do I point for the USA or for the European pronunciations? And what if there are two manuscripts and we meet together after many years from our two different exiled nations and compare manuscripts and we need to unify the pronunciation and grammar for the generations to come, for the sole purpose that there be no more differences but rather a unity of pronunciation and interpretation? And then we have the same word which carries slightly different meanings, 'Purse' and 'Chips' and 'Biscuit' - these words mean something else to the European English and something different to the American English, so I need to account for that and point it accordingly or make a qeri and a ketiv out of it. Then in a thousand years time along come two scholars of an ancient English no longer spoken in the vernacular and they debate the meaning of the word ''Purse', 3


Karl, I was expecting to trawl through a whole list of words and grammatical points from you so that I could at the very least understand what you see. But all you provide are platitudes regurgitating the same unfounded accusations against a generation of hebraists and Rabbis and scholars. I even asked you (twice) if you make a difference between Karaites and Rabbis, do you at least concede that the latter are at odds with Rabbinical approaches?

A court would declare that the Masoretes and grammarians are exonerated and there is no case to answer. You, unfortunately, have failed to bring any evidence at all to substantiate your claims of incompetence, inaccuracy or misguided endeavours against those who toiled with a respect and reverence for God to ensure the accuracy and faithfulness of Scripture, one can not say this about many many English translators of our English Bibles can they. The fact that Biblical Hebrew has even survived with its comprehensive grammar and with its meanings of verbs and nouns is a testament to absolute genius on the part of every scribe that sat in his wooden chair pursuing a task that God had given him, albeit he did not always perceive it as such maybe, but nevertheless, no other ancient literature in all of history since the dawn of time has ever achieved anything like this. CASE CLOSED.

Chris watts

[talmid56]

Karl wrote:

I have seen that claim, but those who make the claim provide no evidence for it. Meanwhile Ezra and Nehemiah before 400 BC give evidence that Hebrew was no longer spoken as a native tongue, rather it assumed the same role as did Latin in medieval Europe.

Actually, they have provided such. You just refuse to accept its validity. The Bar Kochva letters, some of which are in Hebrew (some are in Aramaic), dated to the 130s A.D., are one example. Since these writers are military men in desperate situations, where communication and understanding is vital to their cause, are we supposed to believe they wrote in Hebrew just as a scholarly exercise? I think not. Not to mention the fact that all known extant rabbinical parables outside the Gospels are written in Hebrew, not Aramaic. This makes it probable, indeed virtually certain, that Jesus' own parables were delivered in Hebrew as well. Since many in Jesus' audience were not well educated, and some illiterate, it is unlikely he would have used such like Latin was used in medieval Europe. (In that case, such was almost exclusively the usage of scholars, churchmen, and lawyers, and probably diplomats.) As for Ezra and Nehemiah, the reference you mention is not conclusive. At best, it only shows that SOME Jews no longer knew Hebrew well enough to speak it natively. Not that the entire Jewish population did not, as you claim.

[talmid56]

Plus, if your understanding of the cases of Ezra and Nehemiah is valid, why should they write any of their work in Hebrew? Why not write it exclusively in Aramaic? All of the text of Nehemiah is in Hebrew. Only a few verses in Ezra are in Aramaic. The bulk of Ezra is in Hebrew. This would seem to be counterproductive if their audience could not understand Hebrew. And, surely, the bulk of their audience was the common man and woman, not scholars.