What a great set of posts and resources! Thanks for sharing this, it is very useful and I wish I had some guidance like this 20 years ago when I started reading manuscripts.

So You Want to Read Handwritten Hebrew Manuscripts, part II.

This post is a continuation of two earlier blog entries here and here.  Its purpose is to help facilitate the reading of handwritten Hebrew manuscripts for intermediate students of the language.  Psalm 113 serves as the subject of this comparison.

Read them all here: משלי אדם.

 

Two recent articles from well-respected news agencies have included fallacious details about the relationship between Hebrew and Aramaic. The first described the Aramaic dialect spoken in the first century of the Common Era as “a language which developed from the classical Hebrew of the scriptures, a few hundred years earlier,” and the second claimed that Aramaic is “the linguistic root of modern day Hebrew and Arabic.”

So which one is it? Is Aramaic the root of Hebrew or did Aramaic develop from Hebrew? The answer, of course, is neither. Although they may be related by a shared lineage, there is not a direct genetic relationship between the two. That is to say, one did not derive from the other. Pete Bekins irascibly assimilates these two absurd statements with the tongue-in-check proposal that “Classical Hebrew developed into Aramaic which then morphed back into Modern Hebrew and Arabic.

via DailyHebrew.com » The Genetic Relationship of Aramaic & Hebrew.

 

Ruth 4:13
‏וַיִּקַּח בֹּעַז אֶת־רוּת וַתְּהִי־לוֹ לְאִשָּׁה וַיָּבֹא אֵלֶיה
So Boaz took Ruth and she became his wife. When they came together…

Really? Yes, it was consensual and I firmly read the Book of Ruth as having strong female roles, but they don’t need the help of the translator.

 

Alexander Samely
Professor of Jewish Thought
Co-Director, Centre for Jewish Studies
Middle Eastern Studies / Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, Samuel Alexander Building
The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK
Tel. (0)161-2753072
Research Project: http://www.manchester.ac.uk/ancientjewishliterature/
Midrash Database: http://mishnah.llc.manchester.ac.uk/home.aspx

 

• You install it by going to Settings>General>Keyboard>International Keyboards and add Hebrew. Activate it by simply tapping on the globe icon to the left of the space bar.
• Pages – seems to work fine, but does not automatically change the alignment to right justified.
• Evernote does! See the screenshot, but Evernote automatically right-justifies the paragraph as you change keyboards.
• Mail and Twitter also do so AND all such apps (including Evernote) give you a nice little “change direction” popup (see screenshot of Twitter).
• Office2 HD is, as with the app as a whole, more crude. It will accept Hebrew but with few frills including change of direction.
• Keynote also accepts Hebrew input without any fuss. It does not, however, allow change of direction (that I could see).
• If you use a BlueTooth keyboard the onscreen keyboard disappears to give you more room on screen. How do you switch languages? Two options:
  • Using the BT keyboard simply use cmd-spacebar
  • Press the Eject key (top right of BT keyboard) to bring up the onscreen keyboard and select it from there.

I have a lot more playing with Hebrew on the iPad before I can say it is a unmitigated success, particularly seeing how files created on the iPad transfer back to the Mac and web (Evernote seems to handle this with no issue). But so far this is a great addition for those of us who want to use the iPad for biblical and rabbinic studies.

 

1. One of which was adding “Find my iPhone” feature, previously requiring a MobileMe account, for free. Unfortunately it tells me so far that my iTunes account does not work with this feature (?).

‏ אכלו וישתחוו כל דשני ארץ לפניו יכרעו כל יורדי עפר ונפשו לא חיה׃

NRSV: Psa. 22.29 To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
and I shall live for him.

NIV: 29 All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him— those who cannot keep themselves alive.

JPS: 30 All those in full vigor shall eat and prostrate themselves; all those at death’s door, whose spirits flag, shall bend the knee before Him.

I do not have my BHS to check the apparatus (and I am about to be late for the service) but I thought I would put this up and see what response better Hebraists than I can offer.

Bob suggested in a comment below that the LXX is quite different that the MT, but if I am reading the Greek correctly (no guarantee of that) does follow the MT fairly closely (it is v. 30 in LXX, just as in MT):
ἔφαγον καὶ προσεκύνησαν πάντες οἱ πίονες τῆς γῆς ἐνώπιον αὐτοῦ προπεσοῦνται πάντες οἱ καταβαίνοντες εἰς τὴν γῆν καὶ ἡ ψυχή μου αὐτῷ ζῇ

The key phrase for the different renderings is the first: ‏אכלו …כל דשני ארץ. This is understood by NIV and JPS as “all those who eat of the fat of the land” (the obvious, literal translation). The NIV chooses the more prosaic non-literal rendering “the rich” while JPS understands the phrase ‏כל דשני ארץ, “all those in full vigor,” as being governed by the verb אכלו rather than the entire element as a unit.

So how does NRSV get “all who sleep in the earth”? Again, my apologies, but I do not have my references with me (other than Accordance) so I am not sure what might be in the MSS. Even the latter clause ‏ונפשו לא חיה in opposite terms. Rather than being something like “those that cannot live” the NRSV renders “and I shall live for him.”

The NRSV is not known for placing Christian interpretations into their translation of the Hebrew Bible so this insistence of reading this verse as a reference to resurrection is surprising to me.

I am eager for others to chime in with their insight.

 

Biblical Studies Carnival XXIII. John took a slightly different approach this time. It looks good to me!

The format of this carnival is simple. I link to representative posts from a wide selection of blogs. The purpose: to introduce a bunch of bloggers to each other who will come, hopefully, to see for themselves what nastiness and spite or fulsome praise I inflict upon a post of theirs, or that of a fellow. I ask questions. I desire answers. Polite bloggers will link to this carnival and comment as they see fit.

Be sure to check his addendum as well.

(Via Ancient Hebrew Poetry.)

 

Take a Seat | Columbia Spectator

I have never encountered such blatant disrespect. Not only were students talking and sleeping during the lecture, but many students left with no concern for how much noise they made on their way out. No one expected everyone to stay in their seats, or at least I did not, but for groups of students to walk out mid-lecture is inappropriate. What is the value of a liberal arts education, and classes like CC that discuss justice and moral values, if we do not appreciate the ideas and try to uphold them?

It is nice to hear an undergrad appreciate the importance of these opportunities and the propriety that should accompany them. She did, however, offer her own critique.

Many students -including myself- voiced the opinion that this lecture was an inappropriate choice for a CC-wide event. It is hard to deny that the lecturer was very knowledgeable on the subject, and anyone who stayed long enough to ask questions or hear answers saw the breadth of his knowledge. Yet his use of Hebrew and Aramaic phrases throughout his speech, without sufficient explanation of the sources and characters that he was citing, made it hard for anyone without his background to follow. Even more than that, it was unclear what his academic analysis of the concept -son of man- and how it relates to Judaism had to do with a discussion of law in the Hebrew Bible or the New Testament.

It is a good reminder to us to know our audience and give a talk that is appropriate to it.

(Via The Columbia Spectator.)

 

Biblical Studies Carnival XXII

Via SansBlogue.

 

Over the coming months we will be updating the site to include all of the information formally available (targumic texts in translation, news, and bibliography) as well as a searchable bibliographic database, Wiki edited by scholars in the field, and hopefully some images of targumic manuscripts.

The Newsletter is also the official organ of the International Organization for Targumic Studies. News and minutes of the IOTS will also be posted at this site.

So please head on over, bookmark the RSS feed, and let me know what else you might like to see at the site!

Welcome to NTCS!

This will be the new Newsletter for Targumic and Cognate Studies! Welcome world! I hope to have most of the content of the old site up by the end of the day week but our goal is to include a searchable database and that will take some time. In the meantime, put this rss into your newsreader and look for updates as new material is uploaded or updated.

The Editor

Christian Brady
cbrady AT targum.info

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(Via NTCS.)