Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Hebrew Inscription Quiz: Text and Interpretation?

11

11 comments

  1. zeh seneh 'esh XXX

    This is the bush of fire XXX

    Sorry I can't make out whether the middle letter of the last word is a nun or gimel.

    ReplyDelete
  2. OK so what I took as a shin was in fact nun-nun-waw. The middle letter of the final word is kaph. This is the bush that was not consumed. zeh seneh 'e:nennu: 'ukka:l.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Correction: initial letter is waw. wehasseneh 'e:nennu: 'ukka:l 'and the bush was not consumed'. Sorry it took me so long to get used to the script.

    ReplyDelete
  4. clarification of last translation:

    and the bush is/was not being consumed

    This is a real qal passive participle. (what grammar books call a passive particile [qatul] is actually a perfect-passive adjective. This is the qal quta:l participle, where the ancient unaccented short vowel is preserved with a dagesh, as always in the remnants in the MT.)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Randall, do I hear you correctly that you have evidence that the word should be pronounced 'uka:l and not 'ukka:l (cf. the dagesh lene in ba:ti:m 'houses')?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Shalom Pete,

    Perhaps I should have written an asterisk for clarity to mark a proto form: *uka:l. this was the older participle form before ukka:l. The pronunciation remains ukka:l, with the dagesh. I was simply explaining where the dagesh came from. (I.e., the word is not a pu`al past but a Qal passive participle. By "passive participle" I mean a real, in-process participle and not the perfect passive qatul commonly called the Qal passive participle in English.)

    ReplyDelete
  7. It just gets me thinking how we really know that so-called dagesh forte actually does double begadkepat letters in forms that are not double in Semitic etymology.

    ReplyDelete
  8. What is this carving from? It looks like the one from the facade of the JTS, but it obviosuly isn't the same one:

    http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6347/1075/1600/bush.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  9. the last letters of that link are bush.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  10. The Jewish Theological Seminary seal--they transliterate it:
    Ve-Hasneh Aineno Uchal

    ReplyDelete