Jump to content

the vagueness of Hebrew


Kristin

Recommended Posts

I am actually looking for the impression people have about Hebrew. This post is kind of unusual, so feel free to skip it. It concerns the vagueness of Hebrew, and I am wondering how others handle this. 

 

Sometimes I feel like we literally don’t know what it is even saying. Take אל, for example. It means “god.” No, it means “not,” no, it actually means “toward.” Really? What kind of language is this? There are hundreds if not thousands of examples like this. The אל situation is normally fixed with pointing, but not all words are, and often even words with the same pointing are split by dictionaries with a -1, -2, -3 and I think the most I have seen is -5.

 

While the pointing does help resolve these issues, the pointing is ridiculously late and I don’t feel like we have any kind of security about -1 and -5 actually being different words.

 

Am I the only one? 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 hours ago, Kristin said:

I am actually looking for the impression people have about Hebrew. This post is kind of unusual, so feel free to skip it. It concerns the vagueness of Hebrew, and I am wondering how others handle this. 

 

Sometimes I feel like we literally don’t know what it is even saying. Take אל, for example. It means “god.” No, it means “not,” no, it actually means “toward.” Really? What kind of language is this? There are hundreds if not thousands of examples like this. The אל situation is normally fixed with pointing, but not all words are, and often even words with the same pointing are split by dictionaries with a -1, -2, -3 and I think the most I have seen is -5.

 

While the pointing does help resolve these issues, the pointing is ridiculously late and I don’t feel like we have any kind of security about -1 and -5 actually being different words.

 

Am I the only one? 

 

No you are not alone.  Since early March 2022 I have been doing a slow careful reading of Daniel using Accordance with loads of external resources. My basic ACCORD setup has been HMT-T, LXX OG and "Theodotion" plus MT-LXX. Rarely consulting English. For two weeks I have been struggling with Daniel chapter 11. Participant Reference in Daniel 11 is notoriously difficult. I found two papers[1] which address Participant Reference in Daniel 11. This morning I was once again pondering Daniel 11:20-23 and your words accurately represent my response to this chapter. I have access to more than enough highly technical exegetical resources on Daniel. For the most part, traditional commentaries like Montgomery ICC, E. J. Young, J. E. Goldingay, have provided little help. Tarsee Li addresses the issue of participant Reference from a within text-linguistic framework developed by Lénart J. de Regt UBS. While this helps unravel one level of ambiguity in Daniel 11. There are multiple other levels of ambiguity. Traditional Biblical Hebrew philology is a daunting field that doesn't instantly reward efforts at close exegetical analysis.

 

I am not a Hebrew scholar.  I embarked on a study of Biblical Hebrew syntax in 1988 to help me read the LXX. After the demise of Biblical Hebrew Forum b-hebrew I have been working on my own. This Daniel project follows a long period of ignoring Biblical Hebrew.

 

If you ever want help with some issue which isn't related to Accordance Software you can send me a PM and I will do some research on your problem. I have the resources. 

 

CSB     

 

[1] Who Did What to Whom? Anaphoric Subjects and Objects in Daniel 11:2b-12:31 Tarsee Li
Oakwood University

A Translation of Daniel 11:2b-12:3 Tarsee Li Oakwood University

 

Postscript:

Quote

While the pointing does help resolve these issues, the pointing is ridiculously late

 

I agree. Pointing is "ridiculously late."

Edited by c. stirling bartholomew
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

I had a professor in seminary years ago who said that Hebrew and Aramaic were more "functional" languages. For example, insects are described as crawling on all fours even though they have six legs. The point is they're crawling. When the Hebrew was unpointed, often words and phrases could carry more than one meaning. Both the LXX (through translation) and the Masoretes (through the addition of vowels) "nailed down" the meaning to essentially one idea most of the time. 

 

The same professor said that Greek was more ontological, more precise in its meanings. He was a NT professor, so he may have had some bias. 

 

What stands out to me about Greek, though, is that it's clear the writers were often thinking in Hebrew/Aramaic while writing in Greek. So that Hebrew functional quality often comes through.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Hi @R. Mansfield,

Thank you for the response. Regarding what you said about unpointed Hebrew, I agree, but I would take it a step further and say that the text is pretty much rendered almost unusable without it. (Just looking at אל, for example). 

 

I thus tend to trust the pointing the Masoretes did more out of necessity than anything, but they also seem to be fairly credible since they seem to have otherwise left the text alone.

 

By contrast, the LXX made radical changes to the text, far deeper than simply translating it. So I use it, but I tend to be somewhat suspicious of it.

 

Regarding how the NT writers were often thinking in Hebrew and Aramaic, I would agree some of them for sure were, while others for sure had not. So it does appear that some of the books were originally written in one language, while other books really were originally written in Greek. 

 

Thank you again and take care,

Kristin

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, Kristin said:

 

Regarding what you said about unpointed Hebrew, I agree, but I would take it a step further and say that the text is pretty much rendered almost unusable without it. (Just looking at אל, for example). 

 

Unpointed Hebrew is not unusable when it is a primary language in practice by the speaker and hearer. This is the case for both ancient and modern Hebrew (the official language in the modern nation of Israel), the latter of which rarely uses any kind of vowel marking (and when it does, it is different from the Masoretic system). The Masoretes developed their vowel system because Hebrew had fallen out of primary use.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi @R. Mansfield,

Yes, I agree completely that the unpointed Hebrew was clear to the original audience who spoke the language. I would only argue that it really is the original audience and near to it, as opposed to Hebrew simply being a primary language. I would make that distinction since I have some students who speak Hebrew natively and they tell me that they find the biblical text incoherent, and I can ironically read it better than they can.

 

Kristin

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My knowledge of Hebrew is limited, but I find the language fascinating. Part of the problem in nailing down meaning is that the language is old, developed in a time when the entire concept of an alphabet was still new, and was used in a primarily oral culture. The issue of pointing is a reminder that the difficulty is at least partly our knowledge, not the language itself. And yet, when Hebrew says "you", you know gender and number, which English does not communicate well. So maybe we need to be less vague about what constitutes vagueness. :) 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/23/2022 at 9:19 PM, Kristin said:

Take אל, for example. It means “god.” No, it means “not,” no, it actually means “toward.” Really?

While Hebrew may appear "vague" (and sometimes it is), a basic knowledge of grammar would clarify and distinguish similar forms. For example, as a noun El is “God,” it negates the verb when used with a jussive and is rendered “no or not,” and in a prepositional construction it specifies “to or toward.” The grammatically tagged texts that are available will help clarify this for you, but there is no real substitute for simply learning the language.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@JonathanHuber,

I agree 100% with what you said about the flaw of modern English! I really wish that English still had a clear sg vs pl "you". I actually find it pretty odd that English lost this, given how useful it is and how other European languages have retained it. In my own translation I admit I briefly considered using some old English to clarify it, but wound up finding that simply too distracting. So unfortunately I have not found a good way to distinguish the two. On the plus though, English does have a neuter gender. :)

@Ronald Webber,
Thank you for your comment, and I agree that אל specifically is typically clear based on the context, but I would still actually consider that vague as the context is needed to even know the meaning, unlike the English words "no" and "toward" which could never be mistaken for one another even outside of context. More importantly though, some of the verbs have dual or triple meanings and so we just assume it means what we would expect. I know Hebrew, or I frankly would not be doing this, but knowing the word is piel in Job 2:9 still requires assumptions to be made. I think most people would say it is "obvious" what the meaning is in Job 2:9, but it is obvious since we are approaching the text with a certain presupposition. If it really did mean "curse" there are a host of Hebrew verbs which actually have that meaning.

Kristin

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

12 hours ago, Kristin said:

By contrast, the LXX made radical changes to the text, far deeper than simply translating it.

Historically, we know neither the source Hebrew text nor the "original" translated LXX Greek text. Deep down we are aware of this, but it's just too easy to run with resources we have at hand, as if the LXX translators' source Hebrew text was the MT and their product was Rahlfs' LXX. ^_^

 

For a deep dive into the LXX's history, read Invitation to the Septuagint. It's far more complicated than I had imagined.

Edited by Daniel L
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi @Daniel L,

 I think "complicated" like you said is a good word for it. A fundamental problem I see is that people often forget that most of the LXX is literally hundreds of years AFTER the NT and was more influenced by the NT than the other way around. A second issue, which is related, is that people often use the LXX to shed light on the MT, when in reality the LXX is simply saying something different from the MT. In any case "more complicated" than people realize is unfortunately a good description.

Kristin

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I haven't mustered the courage to tackle Hebrew yet, but what you're describing sounds like an ancient equivalent of today's SMS-abbreviated writing (LOL, TY, L8ter, etc).

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@KristinI wonder this too.

 

But perhaps I can offer some consolation. I'm not a scholar and I'm a poor student of Hebrew, but I have studied Arabic quite a bit. Arabic is not all that closely related to Hebrew, but shares numerous similarities.

 

Arabic is also very flowery and imprecise. Arabs speak HEAVILY in proverbs, expressions, analogies, historical/religious allusions, etc. The language has vowel points, but they are rarely used---and also a late addition. The limited vocabulary means many words look basically the same. Yet by virtue of familiarity, there is really not all that much confusion.

 

With Biblical Hebrew, the issue is exacerbated by the obvious lack of native speakers in the modern day; it's really hard to be familiar enough to read without points when even the scholars barely know the extended vocabulary.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi @Andrew Patterson,

That is interesting what you said about Arabic. I have noticed that Arabic seems to share a lot with Hebrew, such as the Arabic version for ב seems to both look and function the same.

 

I actually wound up buying the Arabic Bible in Accordance awhile ago, hoping that I would sort of figure the language out with it in parallel to Hebrew, but I relatively quickly figured out that was not realistic. I am still glad I got it though, as I have periodically needed to refer to random languages of the Bible and have been relieved to have a copy in Accordance when I have needed it.

Regarding what you said about with familiarity there is "really not all that much confusion" that is my impression too, but I think "no confusion" sounds better. :)

 

Regarding how the problem is worse in Hebrew because of the lack of native speakers, to be honest, I am not really sure how much being a native speaker in Hebrew helps that much. Biblical Hebrew has a vocabulary and grammar which is different enough from modern Hebrew that in many regards I would consider biblical Hebrew a dead language, similar to Koine vs modern Greek. The case endings etc have changed in both languages enough that knowing the modern equivalents creates confusion. I have had both native Greek speakers and native Hebrew speakers as students, and they all confirm that the biblical texts we are using are unclear to them. I think this is understandable. We even see language variation from the KJV, and that is just a few hundred years ago, not thousands and thousands.

Kristin

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Consider also how similar modern Arabic and 4000 year-old Hebrew still are. The Semitic triconsonantal roots preserve vocabulary from metathesis and corruption, which occur much more easily and quickly in Indo-European languages. 

 

I think the Lord "made up" for some of the confusion in this way; you noted the quick development of English even in the last 400 years, but Arabic has barely changed at all in the same time (except the spoken form, which is never written).

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

56 minutes ago, Kristin said:

 . . .  native Hebrew speakers all confirm that the biblical texts . . . are unclear to them

 

In case anyone doesn't know, Marc Brettler’s, Biblical Hebrew for Students of Modern Israeli Hebrew (Yale University Press, 2002) (see https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300084405/biblical-hebrew-for-students-of-modern-israeli-hebrew/ ) addresses this.

 

It is excellent in this regard.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please sign in to comment

You will be able to leave a comment after signing in



Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...