B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

They are no diacritics in ancient Hebrew or Phoenician, so the language is rarely studied as a stand-alone, its weighed down with theology and niqqud. I am only interesting in the authentic ancient Phoenician language.

Aramaic inscriptions are found in Afghanistan, the Kandahar Edict of Ashoka written c 260BCE

Can you read this on its own?

שנן י פתיתו עביד זי מראן פרידארש מלכא קשיטא מהקשט
מן אדין זעיר מרעא לכלהם אנשן וכלהם אדושיא הובד
ובכל ארקא ראם שתי ואף זי זנה כמאכלא למראן מלכא זעיר
קטלן זנה למחזה כלהם אנשן אתהחסינן אזי נוניא אחדן
אלך אנשן פתיזבת כנם זי פרבסת הוין אלך אתהחסינן מן
פרבסתי והופתיסתי לאמוהי ולאבוהי ולמזישתיא אנסן
איך אסרהי חלקותא ולא איתי דינא לכלהם אנשיא חסין
זנה הותיר לכלהם אנשן ואוסף יהותר.

Hello, Lee Mcgee

This test of "reading it alone" is not fair at all.
The ability to read a text without vowels is not based on the shape of the letters, but it is based on the vocabulary knowledge, And most of all, on the knowledge of the grammatical pattern and syntax.
The shape of the letters says nothing.

And so, you cannot make this kind of test.

As for the issue itself...
Every Hebrew reader can read without vowels, and this is how the Hebrew is read since the beginning.
Mishna, Talmud, (also the Talmudic Aramaic), books, and so on.

Once one speaks the Hebrew language, it is easy for him to read it without vowels marks, exactly like an Arabic man reads Arabic without vowels marks.

The vowels marks were added to the Bible because it is sacred and the accuracy is essential for those who see it like that.

And I already know the answer, which I don't accept, that This is Biblical and This is not.
And so, it doesn't matter, because the Hebrew reader is easy to understand the pattern easily.

And you can check it for yourself.
Here is a story that was written a few centuries ago, in Biblical Hebrew
https://benyehuda.org/mapu/ahavat_zion_complete.html

If you wish to test one's knowledge in Biblical Hebrew, then you should ask if he can read this.
This is Biblical Hebrew with no vowels.
And if a man can read it with no vowels, then he can read also the Bible with no vowels.
And if he can't, then he also cannot read the Bible, and just thinks he can, because he uses translations next to it to help him.

The Biblical can sometimes be harder to read also for a Hebrew reader, Not because he doesn't have the knowledge of the pattern, but because sometimes the Biblical text is written is a "short way" or with a lot of poetic styles, and so it can make it harder to understand, just like any poetic text can be harder to understand.
But that is not because of lack of knowledge, but because the text itself, objectively, is written in a hard style to understand.

Another test is any kind of Hebrew with no vowels, like Ben Sirah, or the Qumran scripts (not the Biblical ones).

The Aramaic text you wrote, probably can be read easily by those who read Aramaic naturally. But it maybe has a lot of "strange" patterns which are different from the patterns on other Aramaic dialects.

So to sum things up,
Each language (Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic) is based on patterns.
The shape of the letters is not important.
So for testing one's knowledge in Hebrew (Biblical or not), you should give a text that uses the same pattern or close to it.

In Isaiah 41:15, it should be read as 'בעל-פיפיות'.
* בעל - "with many" (teeth, points, handles) cf. (πολ-)ἀμφίστομος, ξίφος, γνάθος

The Septuagint translates מורג into two words "τροχοὺς ἁμάξης", that literally means "Wagon-wheel", so this seems to be describing an ancient agricultural tool.

תדוש/δαίσεις "to cleave asunder'
תדק/τύπτεις "to beat, strike, smite, the beating west wind'

The Hebrew scriptures describes agricultural machines, wine-presses and aqueducts, physical tools, but its always interpreted as abstract and thus very little research as being done.

Saboi wrote:In Isaiah 41:15, it should be read as 'בעל-פיפיות'.
* בעל - "with many" (teeth, points, handles) cf. (πολ-)ἀμφίστομος, ξίφος, γνάθος.

Okay, and how it s read now?

ducky wrote:

Saboi wrote:In Isaiah 41:15, it should be read as 'בעל-פיפיות'.
* בעל - "with many" (teeth, points, handles) cf. (πολ-)ἀμφίστομος, ξίφος, γνάθος.

Okay, and how it s read now?

They are other examples.

Ecclesiastes 10:11 בעל־הלשון "many tongues"
2 Kings 1:8 בעל־שער "with much hair"
Daniel 8:20 בעל הקרנים "with many horns"
Ecclesiastes 10:11 בעל־הלשון "many tongues"
2 Samuel 5:20 בעל־פרצים "with many branches"

What you will find that translations including the Septuagints, they don't translate 'בעל־', for example in 2 Kings 1:8, it reads "איש בעל שער", translations read "Hairy man", the Septuagint as "ἀνὴρ δασὺς", so none of the readings account it, for the meaning was lost.

בעלשער/πολύθριξ "with much hair"
איש בעלשער/ἠίθεος πολύθριξ "unmarried youth or bachelor with much hair"

Hello

the בעל doesn't mean "with many".
it has nothing to do with "quantity"

the בעל is about belonging, and if it comes next to a collective noun or a singular noun that represent the abstract idea, then the whole combination of the בעל + noun is a description of the object

the בעל הקרנים that you quoted from Daniel and read it as "many horns" is described in this chapter with two horns. (read the context).
So if the בעל really means "many" as you say, then why write it here? to represent the two horns? this is the known case.

the בעל שער is a collective noun and this describes the man as a man with hair. As his hair is the symbol to represent him.
בעל לשון is not a man with many tongues, but the לשון represent the idea of the "Speak, Talk". As the tongue is what describes the man in this case.
בעל נפש - doesn't mean many souls.
and the בית in בעל הבית can only be seen as "A House" since the word בית is not a collective noun nor abstract, and it is singular, so of course, the בעל cannot be seen as many.

Daniel 8:20 - בעל הקרנים > πολύ τα κέρᾶτα "with many horns", but can combine into an adjective, πολυκέρως.

*האיל אשר־ראית בעל הקרנים/ὁ οἶς ὃν ὁράεις πολύ τα κέρᾶτα

The Septuagint as "The Ram (singular) with many-horns is the King (singular) of Media and Persia", since Media-Persia were already united, the following verse mentions 'Darius, the son of Xerxes", so the translators are the ones creating the prophecies.

Jason Hare wrote: (1) What we call the Septuagint today is not the Septuagint that Ptolemy wrote about. "The Jews" is not an identification of the authors.
(2) The Greek text is not always a literal translation of the Hebrew; therefore, trying to establish one-for-one equivalents is NOT the best way to get at the meaning of any given Hebrew word.
(3) Hebrew stands on its own without Greek to prop it up.

For what it's worth, I agree.

Hello,

Daniel 8:20
הָאַיִל אֲשֶׁר רָאִיתָ בַּעַל הַקְּרָנָיִם
"the ram that you saw" goes back to the vision that was seen before

8:3
וָאֶשָּׂא עֵינַי וָאֶרְאֶה וְהִנֵּה אַיִל אֶחָד עֹמֵד לִפְנֵי הָאֻבָל וְלוֹ קְרָנָיִם וְהַקְּרָנַיִם גְּבֹהוֹת וְהָאַחַת גְּבֹהָה מִן הַשֵּׁנִית וְהַגְּבֹהָה עֹלָה בָּאַחֲרֹנָה
"the one is longer than the second one"

8:7
וַיַּךְ אֶת הָאַיִל וַיְשַׁבֵּר אֶת שְׁתֵּי קְרָנָיו
and he hit the ram and broke his two horns.

***
the ram that was described as בעל קרנים had two horns.

The reason that this ram was described by his horns as בעל קרנים is that the horns are the essential objects of this vision.
(and not to set an idea of many horns since this isn't what the text says and also it has no relevance to the vision's idea)

Nahum 1:2 - ובעל חמה "and is filled of fury"

In Numbers 24:3, the story of בלעם (Balaam) emphases his eyes or vision and explains his name came from the adjective, πολυόμματος "many-eyed" (πολύ-ὄμμα > πλ-ὄμ > בלעם). In Greek mythology, this is the epithet of Argus Panoptes.

In 2 Samuel 5:20 and 1Ch 14:11, this is explained in the passage, the place was named "breaking of the waters" (כפרץ מים) (Sept. διακόπτεται ὕδατα). בעל־פרצים is explained with the adjective, πολυρραγής "river, with many branches, or violent'