gregor

Judge - Why don't you first explain your expertise in any ANE linguisitic field? It appears that all your Aramaic primacy arguments come second-hand from some web site, then spin and Mr. Weimer shoot them down, and you cannot respond. Your arguments bear a resemblance to the creationist arguments against evolution.

spin

The wonderful thing about knowledge is that the more you have the more you are able to make judgments. You need the knowledge to be able to judge my comments on the subject -- which is my answer to your question.

Linguistics is a field little understood even by many philologists, yet it has the descriptive and analytical tools to deal with any human language. Linguistics as such is universal as is its understanding of universal concepts underlying languages. Linguistics deals with how languages work (at various levels, from phonology to discourse), how they change, how they are similar to other languages and various other problems not relevant here.

The more information one has of a language the more honed the analysis will be. This includes knowledge of other languages especially related languages. To understand how a language works you need to be able to use at least another language from your mother tongue to dissociate your thinking from the constraints of the single language -- a necessary but hardly a sufficient requirement.

Linguists have the tools to confront unknown languages and step by step unveil their characteristics. The linguist in approach is quite different from the philologist who usually is steeped in a particular language without any necessary linguistic understanding of the language beside the rudiments of classical instruction as to how the language works, often by rote and formula until the language is infused. (This doesn't mean that a philologist cannot be a linguist as well, but their is no necessity for one to be the other.)

How much Greek do I know? How much Aramaic? How much Turkish? How much Finnish? How much French? I've dabbled in them all and some others, but I don't claim competence in any. A linguist knows how to get linguistic information about all of them. All that is needed is a sufficient sample of the language and it is a windfall if there is an accompaniment of the philologist's translation (so that the linguist can see what both the original language and the translation are doing and expend much less effort).

Your basic problem, judge, is that while you have no tools to deal with the issues we have touched on you can make no relevant judgments. Asking about my skills won't help you at all.


spin

Chris Weimer

Here, here, judge. What are your relevant degrees? What are/did you study/ing at the university? What profressional correspondance do you have? How much Aramaic do you actually know (don't make me recall the backwards script and the final nun in the middle of a word). How about Greek? What about history? Any historical studies? Any linguistic studies? As for spin, I can attest to his knowledge - far above me, and probably most here. What about you?

judge

Spin's knowledge of aramaic is not as great as you imagine.

look here

I think you can stop worshipping spin. :notworthy :notworthy

Check out post 5 and my reply in post 8.

I have no doubt that spin is very skilled in linguistics, however his comments WRT Aramaic need to be treated cautiously.

Had I not investigated his replies in the above link no doubt you would have been in awe :notworthy at his analysis.

Chris Weimer

:rolling: Nice one, judge. :thumbs: Judge, even before spin ripped up your answers, I could have done that. You might want to take a refresher course in Semitic linguistics (or in that case, anything on the subject at all). You've actually alerted the community to your ignorance again. There is nothing there which shows that you know what your talking about or you can gather materials from the sources directly as opposed to third hand websites. Try again.

Chris Weimer

Moreover, if you knew anything about the peer-reviewed process, you would know that you have to write a paper first before people can critique it. So, judge, where's the paper? Where's the full and comprehensive proof that the Peshitta is prime? No, wait, don't even bother with Chris Lancaster bs - I had to stop my paper even before I was through with his first chapter for fear I would die of laughter. (or depression - how could people be this stupid?) No, judge, bring it on, where's your paper?

spin

(Though of course you wouldn't know, as you can't do any umm, treating, judge.)

:rolling: :rolling: :rolling:

I wonder why you didn't mention post #15 as well, judge.



spin :wave:

judge

Chris take step back for a minute. Don't you realise Spin is just playing a game?

I pointed out Aramaic words in the greek NT. Spin then starts to play a game.
He will try to pretend they are not Aramaic words.

He makes a fool of you, or perhaps you make one of yourself.

Are you really thinking they are not Aramaic?

More the fool you. You post here under your own name. Spin can play this game becuase he does not.
I point to Aramaic words he just claims they are not.

It is all a game, don't you see?

And yet you are perhaps the only one who takes it seriously.

Spin of course could have said.."Yes perhaps these are Aramaic words".
But that is not his(?) style. Spin enjoys the cut and thrust, and is a great poster to have in a discussion, alert, knowlegeable and with a sense of humor.

But do realise that he does plays games.


Added in edit:
Unless of course you are playing a game as well?

gregor

Judge please post your qualifications.

lpetrich

A good reference for Biblical flat-earthism is Robert J. Schadewald's "The Flat-Earth Bible". The Bible's writers are not very interested in cosmology, so one has to work out their views from the various allusions they make. However, the noncanonical work 1 Enoch goes into much more detail:

The Earth is flat
The sky is a bowl overhead
The celestial bodies enter and exit the sky bowl at ground-level gates
The celestial bodies all move independently
Celestial bodies that dawdle get jailed

As to Genesis 1, it has a schematic structure that can be interpreted as a very orderly, step-by-step sort of creation:

Day 1: Celestial environments
Day
Night

Day 2: Far-terrestrial environments
Sky
Sea

Day 3: Near-terrestrial environments
Land
Plants

Day 4: Celestial inhabitants
Day: Sun
Night: Moon, stars

Day 5: Far-terrestrial inhabitants
Sky: Flying animals
Sea: Aquatic animals

Day 6: Near-terrestrial inhabitants
Land: Land animals, humanity
Plants: God tells us that "you may eat these".

Day 7: God was so happy with what he had done that he took the first day off in the history of the Universe

Note the parallelism between Days 1-3 and Days 4-6.