Outdoors -- starlings II

I don't like starlings.  They're noisy.
They're worse than squirrels at stealing bird food because they come in flocks instead of pairs.
There are only two good things about starlings.
They eat bugs.
And they can diagnose that you're mowing your lawn too short.
If you get a lot of starlings on your lawn in summer, you know that you mow your grass too short.
The starlings are there to eat Japanese beetle grubs.
There wouldn't be Japanese beetle grubs in your lawn if you weren't mowing your grass too short.
Japanese beetle mothers love short grass because it lets them lay eggs on the ground.
It also lets the sun keep the ground so warm that the eggs will hatch.
If the grass is 3 inches long, no eggs can reach the ground and it's not warm enough to hatch them.
Don't mow your grass shorter than 3 inches.
Then you won't have Japanese beetle grubs in your lawn.
And you won't have flocks of starlings coming to eat them.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Fact-Checking the Torah -- what did he know and...

I’ll start by looking harder at Merneptah’s stele.          

The first thing to know is that the word “Israel” on the stele has a determinant for a people, not an individual.  Egyptian was a little bit like Chinese in having specific signs which showed how to consider a particular word. (So did Akkadian, matter of fact.)  You have to use zhang when counting sheets of paper or tickets in Chinese, because they are thin flat things, usually longer in one dimension than in another. 

Egyptian had a specific hieroglyphic showing that “Israel” was an ethnic group.  So we’re not talking about the head of a family or a small group of slaves.

The next thing to know about Merneptah’s stele is that it was put up to commemorate an expedition to the Holy Land.  Merneptah ruled in a time of comparative desiccation.  Egypt was desperate for food.  The Holy Land had grain and other foodstuffs, and Merneptah sent an army there to get some.  (Which combats the idea of the Holy Land as hot sandy scrub desert at that time.)

The stele lists Israel and K’naan in parallel.  The K’naani had been known to the Egyptians for centuries.  The Tell-el-Amarna tablets (written in what else – cuneiform) from Akhenaten’s time had notations on them in K’naani.  In the centuries from 2350 BCE when the power vacuum west of Mesopotamia developed and deepened, and the 1340s BCE when Akhetaten was Egypt’s capital, the people in the Holy Land started developing languages other than Akkadian.  One was K’naani and another was Hebrew; Ugaritic and Eblaitic may be independent languages or variants of K’naani.  The K’naani adapted cuneiform to their language and notes in it show up in Egypt, in letters and other documents.

Those letters do not list Israel as a people of the Holy Land.  They discuss the Hapiru who, you now know, were not the Hebrews; they discuss other residents of the Holy Land who were not Hapiru.  In the centuries after Akhenaten, the Egyptians found out who the Israelites were, and realized that they existed in similar numbers and holding a similar extent of territory compared to the better-known K’naani, in the same region as the K’naani.

If this was not general knowledge in Egypt by Merneptah’s times, then he had to find it out at the time of the event that the stele commemorated.  In other words, while stealing grain, the Egyptian troops conducted an ethnographic survey.  “We’re taking this for Egypt.  By the way, what do you call yourselves?  Israel?  Fine, we’ll put that down.  Come to Egypt later and we’ll show you the stele we’re going to put up naming you.”

So the positive evidence of the stele suggests that Israel did exist as an ethnic group, and a sizeable one, holding plenty of territory in the Holy Land, in Merneptah’s time.  What it doesn’t show is when Israel first appeared in the Holy Land or when they left Egypt.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

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