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July 28, 2005 In the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, which, incidentally is not really the name of the first book of the Bible, since in Hebrew it is "Breshit" (In Beginning), God is on record as making the following utterance: Yehi or (Let there be light). If we are to take the Bible as inerrant, then God must have said, "Yehi or". If this statement is only figurative or poetic, then the Bible cannot be said to be inerrant. First of all, whom was God addressing? At that time, for all that can be discerned from the Bible, there was no one listening. Why did God choose to say anything? Secondly, did he really speak Hebrew before the creation of the Sun and the Moon? To me, it seems highly improbable that God invented the Hebrew language before the creation of the human race also. But if the Bible is inerrant, the conclusion is inescapable that God was the creator and first speaker of the Hebrew language. This was apparently the attitude of Jewish rabbis, scholars and grammarians throughout antiquity and the Middle Ages. The Bible was God’s perfect book, written in his perfect language, and commentary and exegesis might be made by means of deduction and intuition, as if by direct conversation with God. A single sentence or phrase from the Bible had infinite levels of meaning, which might be extracted by meticulous study and contemplation. The pronouncements of the Bible were incontestable; they needed not be verified empirically. If they seemed to contradict reality, then reality was wrong. In the early 19th century, Wilhelm Gesenius (1786-1842), the most distinguished Hebraist of his day, composed a grammar and a dictionary of the Hebrew language, along with Biblical commentaries, in his capacity as a professor at Halle University, in Germany. He was one of the first scholars to put the study of the Hebrew language on a sound philological basis, using the comparative method, with attention to Aramaic, Arabic and other Semitic languages. Still the climate of the times was such that he provoked much negative criticism from the orthodox or conservative element for presuming to trivialize Hebrew by subjecting it to a more scientific kind of research. Perhaps for this reason, Gesenius made the concession of trying to portray the Hebrew language as a nearly perfect vehicle of _expression, far more systematic and regular than Greek or Hebrew. Everywhere in his book, “Hebrew Grammar”, there are references to the perfection, power and charm of the Hebrew language, as if he had been making a half-hearted effort to continue the work of his forerunners, like Moses and David Qimhi, medieval grammarians. However, as you proceed in your Hebrew studies, you slowly begin to understand that Hebrew does not really have the appearance of divine handiwork. When all is said and done, the Hebrew language is an irregular, chaotic mess, just loaded with illogicalities and needless complexities. With the reconstitution of Israel and the resuscitation of the Hebrew language, in our more scientific age, Gesenius’ notions have been challenged. Modern Israelis are more aware than anyone of the notorious intricacies of that language, which really could have stood, but didn’t receive, extensive reform. Following in Gesenius’ footsteps, Benjamin Davidson, author of “An Analytical Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon of the Old Testament”, parsed and translated every word in the Hebrew Bible in his masterful book, published in Scotland in the 19th century. He was perhaps the first to challenge the idea of Mosaic authorship of the Torah, but he had to recant in order to retain his professorship. In other words, his intellectual inferiors—his regents and provosts—were his paymasters as well.. If linguistic regularity, orderliness, precision and efficiency are the hallmarks of a divinely created language, Hebrew fails miserably. And if Hebrew doesn’t meet the standards we ought to maintain, what are we to think of the supposed divinity of that language or of that first famous attempted literary masterpiece? ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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