judge

Just out of interest Spin earlier you stated you felt close to doing a paper on this stuff.

from here.

Are you much closer?

thanks

jjramsey

On the fine details of that, I will defer to Smith and Carlson. Smith certainly met you halfway when he wrote:

The fundamental problem that I see is that you are trying to prove a negative, namely that Hebrew/Aramaic speakers just would not drop that "-t". Proving a negative isn't impossible in principle, but in practice, you have your work cut out for you. You not only have to consider what the habits of the LXX and Peshitta scribes were, but also the habits of Aramaic-speaking commoners who may not stick to the rules that the scribes have.

spin

Fine details, gross details, whatever.

What I have done is to show what the normal usages were at the time and to show that there was not a single example of the Naz- terms which evinced what one would expect given the normally understood trajectory.

As Doctor McCoy said in so many ways, "he's dead, Jim."


spin

spin

Well, I got a first draft down, but then it didn't get past that. If I can't get out of here with something as straightforward as this, I don't think I'd ever get it published.


spin

jjramsey

What you have not done is established that the "-t" could not be dropped, and judging from what Smith brought out, you missed some cases where the "-t" was dropped.

spin

Smith was a little confused over what the Meshillemoth issue was about. He was also unable to establish the relationship between Gennesar and Kinnereth. I have no problem here.

The missing -t is part of your problem, along with the zeta in every instance. I can sit back on the issue and watch you squirm.


spin

jjramsey

Pliny is still a problem. Saying that he "worked from texts, not from people" is a vague, handwaving response.

Ben C Smith

Just for clarification, are you saying that Gennesar(et) and Kinnereth are etymologically unrelated?

Ben.

spin

Yup.

Hebrew KAF -> Greek chi.

And where does the -s- come from? I'd love a precedent in Hebrew for that.

They are obviously two different words.


spin

Ben C Smith

(Or kappa.)

I suspect rather that Gennesaret is a Graecized corruption of Chinnereth. Nevertheless, even if we ignore Chinnereth, does not Gennesaret itself furnish an example of the flexibility of endings? The synoptic evangelists call Gennesaret what Josephus calls Gennesar and Pliny calls Genesar(a).

Or, if we ignore Gennesaret, we have Chinnereth coming out as Chenara in Numbers 34.11, as I mentioned.

And what about Daberath? The LXX leaves the ending in at Joshua 19.12, but drops it at 1 Chronicles 6.72. (It drops even more than the ending at Joshua 21.28.)

Ben.