Bit at a Time Bible Hebrew -- how do you know?

So we have imperfect and perfect aspects of verbs straight, and we know something about the progressive aspect.  Now I want to say more about what I brought up at the end of the last lesson, which is that without vowels some words look alike.

 

The most extreme case is probably dover/diber/davar /davar.  They are, in order, progressive aspect of the qal binyan, perfect aspect of the piel binyan, a noun, and perfect aspect of qal.

 

How do you tell them apart? 

 

You’ve already seen the discussion on how to tell progressive from perfect aspect, even if you don’t have the vowels.  But there is a way to tell perfect and progressive apart that is much more subtle, and only applies to prophecy and poetry.  When you have a verse containing prophetic or poetic material, it often falls into two phrases which reinforce the image that puts the message across.  It’s somewhat like Anglo-Saxon poetry which uses this format with kennings, different phrases for the same thing, but it’s something like 2000 years older.

 

The single best example is probably Genesis 49:9.  The end of the verse is

רָבַץ כְּאַרְיֵה וּכְלָבִיא מִי יְקִימֶנּוּ:

“He lay down like a lion, like a lioness who will make him rise up.”

 

If there were no vowels, I would still say that the word before “lion” is ravats, not rovets.  There are none of the indicators for progressive aspect I talked about before.  There are also other examples of this format with perfect aspect in the first phrase and imperfect aspect in the second phrase.  This is a structure that will never have a progressive verb.

 

Notice that this last example doesn’t rely on just the wording in the verse.  It relies on the fact that the entire context of Tannakh, not just Torah, has examples of this structure.  So context isn’t just the words, it’s the meaning or usage of the entire passage, and the examples may lie  outside Torah.

 

Let me connect that last statement with something you often find on websites and in publisher’s descriptions.  “Literal translation”.  Anybody who thinks you can go word by word in a work, and translate each one to a different language, and come up with something that makes sense, doesn’t know anything about good translation.  So if you are asked to cough up money and the attraction is a “literal translation”, don’t be fooled.  Keep your money in your pocket.  If you really want to know what that book says, learn the language for yourself.  It may take years, and you might have to read lots of other literature in the same language to get really good.  Don’t let that discourage you.  Just because it takes time and effort doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing.

 

I’ll do a review next week and then we’ll move on.

 

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

 

DIY -- perked coffee

Manage your expectations.  Yep, perked coffee is great...
The good things: no filters.  I'm a tea purist and I know I can taste the paper in tea bags so 99% of the time I use leaf tea.  Same with coffee filters.  So much for drip makers.
Also no plastic to go in the land fill.  So much for K-cups.
Goes anywhere.  If you buy the right stove-top percolater, you can take it camping or use it on your hibachi if your electricity is out.
Tastes really great.  Most coffee I put sugar and milk into, especially the milk to cut the acid.  I bought some "house blend" coffee at a website where I've been buying my mother gourmet drip-grind coffee for years, and it was so smooth that a spoonful of brown sugar with no milk was almost overkill as far as dressing it up.  I'm trying classic 8 O'clock and Chock Full of Nuts next.

It took me about a week to work out the settings and timing and get some coffee to actually perk.
First, put 1 cup COLD water in the pot and 1 TBSP ground coffee in the basket, then put the basket lid on.
That's for 1 person.
You need the basket lid for two reasons: it keeps the ground coffee from splashing into the pot, and in my percolator it supports the top where the glass knob is.
Close the pot. 
Set it on a cold burner and turn the burner on to just below the middle of the dial.
On my electric stove, that was setting 3 of 7.
When you hear the percolator rattle, the water is boiling.  Notice that you can't have your earbuds in or be in the shower and still catch it before it overcooks.
You should be able to see the water (and a few grounds) hit the glass knob of the pot.  That's the "perk" part.
After 15 minutes, pour a test splash into the cup. 
If it's clear, keep perking another 15 minutes at least.
On my electric stove I find that some of the water will go out the spout, so when I get a clear test splash, I prime the pot by running some more cold water into the spout.  If you have a gas stove, this may never happen to you.

If all else fails you can boil water separately and pour it over the coffee but that's not the point of having a percolator.

Put your coffee grounds in your compost heap and mark that spot to save that stuff for your acid loving plants.  I'm going to put mine on the hydrangea that was next to my porch when I moved in 25 years ago.

There are bigger issues: can you be a locovore and drink coffee?  Only if you live where avocados can grow.  In California they are growing coffee bushes in some avocado orchards. 
Yerba mate can grow where temps normally stay above 25 all year round.
You CAN be a locovore and drink real tea if you live in growing zone 7b (like the DC area) or south of that.  A farm in North Carolina grows tea and sells seedlings of different varieties of Camellia sinensis, the true tea bush.
One, called Sochi, is a Russian variety.  It is frost-hardy but you have to be able to shade it for at least half the day in winter, to reproduce the solar conditions in Russia in winter.  Check out Camellia Forest Nursery, including the blog that shows how to process the leaves into drinkable tea.

And again, that's only if you can't live without your caffeine.  You can grow herbal teas in your yard almost anywhere, including chamomile and medicinals such as horehound or feverfew.

Growing tea or giving up caffeine, are both less expensive than continuing to support a coffee habit because they require less energy to produce and move.
Think globally, act locally.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Fact-Checking the Torah -- provenance of the Exodus

And now probably the biggest urban legend of them all.  When did the Exodus happen?

I know that some people want to say “Did the Exodus happen?” but I think it’s better to answer that later because the answer involves fallacies.

For right now, let’s look at the basis of the urban legend.

About 1896 archaeologists discovered a stele at Waset, “City of the Scepter”, known to Greeks as Thebes, east across the Nile from Karnak.  It is near Medinet Habu, Valley of the Kings, and Luxor.  The stele was dated to 1207 BCE in the reign of Merneptah.  When it was found, people read hieroglyphics fairly well, and it leapt out at them that the stele referred to Israel.

Forty years before that was right about in the middle of the long reign – not just the life but the reign – of Merneptah’s father, Ramses II.  I guess that people put this together with a supposed power vacuum in the Holy Land that resulted from a battle to a draw between Ramses II and the Hittites, and said that the Israelites would have left Egypt in Ramses II’s reign and consolidated their position in the Holy Land during the period of the power vacuum.

But archaeological research in the region of Moav in layers associated with this date for the Exodus didn’t turn up any remains that would coordinate with the seeming high level of culture that would throw up a king like Balaq who could send emissaries to a far place for a prophet.  Decades later, I have trouble finding Moabite studies that don’t concentrate on the 800s BCE; if the work has been done, I guess the reports are not online.

There was another problem due to the minimal remains at Pi-Tum in the layers for the 1200s BCE.  Pi-Tum was a city of the 26^th dynasty, the time of the Babylonian captivity; the idea occurred that the Exodus was made up at that time.

Arguments then began that Merneptah’s stele referred to an individual who had been conquered and “his seed exterminated,” so that whoever turned out to be the ancestors of the Jews, it would not be the Israel named on the stele.

Also Ramses left no records about disturbances of nature or large-scale emigrations, not that we’ve found to date.  The most that could be shown by later archaeology, was that a 19^th dynasty military officer stopped at a place called Tjeku and asked the locals if they knew where some runaway slaves had gone.  So supposedly the Exodus of 600,000 military-age men, besides women and children, was whittled down to a few runaway slaves who might have been killed off, but certainly never “covered the face of the earth” in a way that would frighten a Moabite king – who in any case didn’t exist at the time of Ramses.

That was the state of our knowledge up to about 1950 and archaeology, as usual, has marched on.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Bit at a Time Bible Hebrew -- progressive ASPECT

Now that you understand imperfect and perfect, I’m ready to talk about progressive aspect.

 

You are used to thinking of the progressive aspect as present tense.  But here’s a past usage which illustrates that it means an action in progress, Genesis 1:2.

וְהָאָרֶץ הָיְתָה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ וְחשֶׁךְ עַל־פְּנֵי תְהוֹם וְרוּחַ אֱלֹהִים מְרַחֶפֶת עַל־פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם:

This means that the action was repeated continuously within the narrative.  After the narrative ends, we no longer worry about it.  Could still be happening!

 

Progressive aspect also has a descriptive flavor, which you saw in Genesis 2:10.

וְנָהָר יֹצֵא מֵעֵדֶן לְהַשְׁקוֹת אֶת־הַגָּן וּמִשָּׁם יִפָּרֵד וְהָיָה לְאַרְבָּעָה רָאשִׁים:

 

Progressive aspect verbs often show up with expressions of location, as with tachat ha-ets in Genesis 18:8. 

 וַיִּקַּח חֶמְאָה וְחָלָב וּבֶן־הַבָּקָר אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה וַיִּתֵּן לִפְנֵיהֶם וְהוּא עֹמֵד עֲלֵיהֶם תַּחַת הָעֵץ וַיֹּאכֵלוּ:

 

Progessive aspect commonly goes with form of od, “still,” as in Genesis 29:9.

עוֹדֶנּוּ מְדַבֵּר עִמָּם וְרָחֵל בָּאָה עִם־הַצֹּאן אֲשֶׁר לְאָבִיהָ כִּי רֹעָה הִוא:

 

Progressive can have an immediately future meaning, as in Genesis 41:9.

וַיְדַבֵּר שַׂר הַמַּשְׁקִים אֶת־פַּרְעֹה לֵאמֹר אֶת־חֲטָאַי אֲנִי מַזְכִּיר הַיּוֹם:

You should probably translate the butler’s statement as “I am about to recall…” You could also, given the context, translate it as  “I have just now recalled…” which is another flavor of the  progressive. 

 

A better example of the immediate past is probably Numbers 14:3:

וְלָמָה יְהֹוָה מֵבִיא אֹתָנוּ אֶל־הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת לִנְפֹּל בַּחֶרֶב נָשֵׁינוּ וְטַפֵּנוּ יִהְיוּ לָבַז הֲלוֹא טוֹב לָנוּ שׁוּב מִצְרָיְמָה:

“Why has **** brought…”

 

Progressive has a habitual sense.  This goes with the yotse of the river above and also with Exodus 7:15.

לֵךְ אֶל־פַּרְעֹה בַּבֹּקֶר הִנֵּה יֹצֵא הַמַּיְמָה וְנִצַּבְתָּ לִקְרָאתוֹ עַל־שְׂפַת הַיְאֹר וְהַמַּטֶּה אֲשֶׁר־נֶהְפַּךְ לְנָחָשׁ תִּקַּח בְּיָדֶךָ:

Midrash Rabbah Shemot 9:8 suggests that Pharaoh’s going out to the Nile was a habit; he pretended that he was a god and didn’t have normal human functions, so he went out to the river to hide the call of nature from his servants. 

 

Perhaps a better example is Exodus 13:15-16.

וַיְהִי כִּי־הִקְשָׁה פַרְעֹה לְשַׁלְּחֵנוּ וַיַּהֲרֹג יְהוָֹה כָּל־בְּכוֹר בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם מִבְּכֹר אָדָם וְעַד־בְּכוֹר בְּהֵמָה עַל־כֵּן אֲנִי זֹבֵחַ לַיהֹוָה כָּל־פֶּטֶר רֶחֶם הַזְּכָרִים וְכָל־בְּכוֹר בָּנַי אֶפְדֶּה:

The habit is zoveach, “I [habitually] sacrifice…” 

 

Finally, progressive aspect is sometimes used the way tense-verb systems use an imperfect tense.  One example is Exodus 2:11.

וַיְהִי בַּיָּמִים הָהֵם וַיִּגְדַּל מֹשֶׁה וַיֵּצֵא אֶל־אֶחָיו וַיַּרְא בְּסִבְלֹתָם וַיַּרְא אִישׁ מִצְרִי מַכֶּה אִישׁ־עִבְרִי מֵאֶחָיו:

Moshe’s seeing the Egyptian is the action that interrupts the Egyptian’s beating that he was giving the Hebrew.

 

Now.  There’s a syntax issue you have to understand.  The normal syntax for perfect and progressive aspects is SVO.  The masculine singular of the progressive can look just like the masculine 3^rd singular of the perfect aspect.  How do you know which one you have, if you don’t have vowels to guide you?

 

This isn’t just an idle question.  There are people, some of them scholars with good reputations, who think that the Torah without vowels, as it appears in the Torah scroll for reading in synagogue, is a free-association test.  From the above, you can see this isn’t true.  If it looks like a perfect aspect verb, but it appears in one of the situations above, look again.  It might be progressive aspect.

 

This is another example of how nothing means anything without context.

 

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Garden -- February 2016

Another thing not to prune now: Hydrangeas.
Read Mike McGrath's recent article:
http://wtop.com/garden-plot-living/2016/01/garden-plot-orchids-plant-snow-hydrangea-care/

I followed McGrath's advice after the terrible snows early in 2014.
I had no flowers that summer.
In 2015, I had some of the most beautiful flowers in 25 years, because I hadn't pruned off the old wood.

People spend too much money on their landscaping because they don't know enough about their plants.
Some of that money goes for poisons that get rid of the bees and butterflies we need to pollinate our food, and that our pets and kids pick up and get sick from.
Other money goes to people who work for us and don't know what they're doing. 
We only hire them because we don't know what they're doing either.
Go to Mike's archives on the YBYG site and study up so you can save money, do less work, and still have a great landscape, while saving the environment.
Think globally, act locally.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Fact-Checking the Torah -- they're all Greeks to me

Now let me go back and clear something up that looks like a puzzle in the archaeology.

The Medinat Habu inscription of Ramses III (1100s BCE, discovered 1859, definitive translation 1906) names the Ekwesh and the Pelishtim and some others as allies in the attack.  People looked at this inscription, saw the names of some of the Sea Peoples, and Libya, and they said, OH, the Ekwesh have to be the Ahiyyawa.

But in the fight with Ramses III, a strange thing happened when his troops were trying to count coup to collect rewards.  They usually cut off the foreskins of those they killed.

They couldn’t count coup on the Ekwesh this way.  The Ekwesh were already circumcised.  So they cut off the corpses’ hands.

Now, as everybody knows, the Achaeans did not practice circumcision.  So there’s something wrong with this identification.

Flip it upside down.  The Achaeans were a proto-Greek component of the Sea Peoples from Crete, and the Cretans were allied for centuries with the Pelishtim, to the point where “Creti and Pleti” was a common phrase for King David’s bodyguard.  The Pelishtim are commonly referred to as “uncircumcised” in the Bible.  At least one archaeologist has no problem with calling the Pelishtim “Greeks.”

In inscriptions put up by the Hittites (before the Sea Peoples steam-rollered them) there was also a list and on it was the name Ahiyyawa – but not Pelishtim.  And, as Singer says, the Hittites used Ahiyyawa for people in the region of Mykenae.

From Mykenae in the 1400s BCE we get Linear B, known to be a script the Pelishtim used, on tablets with words that look suspiciously like Greek.  One of these tablets refers to trader/mercenaries, the Iawones (is it coming together?). 

If these are the Ionians, we know that they lived for a while in a Peloponnesian region called Achaia, some time about the 1100s BCE, about the time the Pelishtim entered the Holy Land in force and founded their seaside Pentapolis; they also left remains at Deir ’Alla in Jordan.

Like the Hittites, the Egyptians didn’t distinguish the two, they called them all Pelishtim.  

I think that Ekwesh refers to Ethiopia, known by that time as Kush, who practiced circumcision.  This goes with Herodotus’ statement that the Ethiopians, like the Egyptians, practiced circumcision.  Now, he’s not reliable, because he says these are the only peoples who do it, except for the people of Kolkhis.  He also thought that the Kolkhians were descended from Egyptians.  In fact, the Tibareni (Tuval) lived in that region.  There’s no independent confirmation of Herodotus’ claims about the Kolkhians. 

Ancient writings have to be taken with large grains of salt when they refer to third parties (or even fourth or fifth) as with Herodotus, who did all his work from his armchair, so to speak.  It takes other data, such as modern studies, to firm up a claim – or disprove it.  I haven’t found anybody else saying that the Ekwesh must be Kush instead of Ahiyyawa, but I think I’m right.

And  next.... The Big One.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Bit at a Time Bible Hebrew -- perfect commandments

So Dr. Cook tells us that Biblical Hebrew is an ancient language with the same features as its relatives, Akkadian, Ugaritic, Canaanitic, and so on, some of which are dead languages. Biblical Hebrew has an aspect verb system with perfect and imperfect. Both forms can have a future meaning, but that depends on the syntax and use of vav.

 

You now know about the narrative past, so you know that the vav at the start of a verse often doesn’t mean “and.” It might signal narrative past, it might signal a relative or coordinate clause.

 

You also know that an imperfect without vav might have a future meaning.

 

You know about oblique modality, so you know that vav with a perfect aspect verb is often a subordinate clause when followed by the subject.

 

Now I’ll give some information about use of perfect and imperfect that has gone under most people’s radar. Dr. Cook referred to one example but what I’m going to say now isn’t in his dissertation.

 

When you have vav plus perfect aspect verb in the 2^nd person singular (or maybe plural), you have a commandment. This happens in the laws of Passover, in the instructions for building the tabernacle, and so on.

 

Why do some commandments use perfect aspect?

 

It’s due to that permansive connotation of the perfect aspect, which it shares with other Semitic languages.

 

Other commandments use imperfect aspect, and there are two classes.

 

When a verse starts out ki or im, followed by a 2^nd person imperfect verb, this should be translated “if X”, where X is the verb for an action that kicks off consequences. It will be followed by the consequences, such as paying a fine. You see this a lot in Exodus 21 and 22.

 

If there is no ki or im, just a 2^nd person imperfect, this is a commandment included in the recitation from of old, BUT the Israelites and Jews never made a Federal case out of investigating it. There are two important examples.

 

One is the cities of refuge, with verses in both Numbers and Deuteronomy. The peculiar case of the cities of refuge is that three of them were on the east bank of the Jordan. The west-bank tribes only went there once, which is recorded in Joshua 22, to object to the eastern tribes building a copy of the cairn set up on the west bank using stones taken from the bank of the Yarden River. The westerners did not stay long enough to check up on the easterners’ implementation of Jewish law. Without evidence that the three eastern cities of refuge were being used in the manner prescribed by Torah, the westerners could not use perfect aspect in the related verses.

 

The other is circumcision. The law is in Leviticus and it uses imperfect aspect. To verify that this had been comprehensively implemented would have required physical inspection. There is no law in Torah requiring such an inspection at any point in a man’s life. There is the statement in Joshua 5 that he had to circumcise all of the generation of the Wilderness, who were not subjected to the procedure during the wanderings; there is also the constant description of the Pelishtim (who were actually Greeks, see the Fact-Checking posts on this blog for the last couple of months) as “uncircumcised” as a distinction from Israelites or Judahites. There are rulings in Mishnah about when a circumcision has been validly performed. But not until Shulchan Arukh in the 1500s CE is there a ruling about who is responsible for making sure that a circumcision takes place. It’s the father, if you want to know.

 

You can catch me out on this if you go back to Exodus 12 and read the Hebrew carefully, taking notes on where these verbs occur, and then research them out into Mishnah, Gemara and, as I said, Shulchan Arukh. I haven’t done all the work yet either. If you’re interested, we can work on it together, and put the results in a new page on the blog.

All right, onward!
 

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved