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Hebrew Language Help Desk

N

NVIII

Seasoned Member
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I am sure we have people among this ecclesia who have developed intimate knowledge of the ancient Hebrew or Greek or are at least practiced in navigating and interpreting cross-language lexicons and can offer in-depth explanations for the actual unadulterated transliterations of certain passages, phrases, and words found in the original manuscripts of the Bible. I am not one of them. When I try to make sense of concordances and the like, it all becomes a tangled wad of yard and never straightens out. Given the well-established existence of the prejudices of past and present widely-published interpreters, it is very difficult to trust a commentary. I'd rather at least pick my poison and expose my mind to the prejudices of you guys.

I doubt I'm the only one so afflicted with a brain poorly disposed to this task. If us ignorant ones post such questions in this thread, would there be volunteers among us confident enough in their understanding to give definitive answers which are not copy/paste from another website, but are a product of their own studies and which they can explain as if to a 5-year old and patiently answer ignorant follow-up questions?
 
I'm just an experienced interpreter of the reference material rather than a speaker of either language, but I'd be glad to have a crack at it.

The most useful tool in any such study, that avoids the potential bias of the writers of lexicons, is to use a concordance to find every appearance of a word in scripture and read all the verses. Use scripture to interpret scripture. That gives you a good understanding of what the word means, and you know you're not just relying on someone else's opinion. Then you have a standard to judge other scholarly opinion by - if the lexical definition is in accordance with what you found yourself but adds further insights you hadn't noticed due to not being a language expert, great, it's useful. If the definition appears to contradict what you found yourself, then hold it with more suspicion. But you'll usually find the former is the case, and the study you have done will give you the confidence that the lexicon is useful at least for that word.
 
I agree that works, usually with surprising results. The trouble is when it's not just a word, but an inflection or phraseology that can't really be compared to other uses. Or perhaps it's no trouble if you know what you are looking at.

I'll give an example. Proverbs 31:31...is the praise about her and given to her, or is it about her and given to someone else? Or something entirely different?
 
Ok, that's beyond me. Greek's not as difficult as Hebrew, and the LXX clearly states "let her husband be praised in the gates", so I can see why you're asking the question. I do not know whether the Hebrew can be interpreted that way (with the praise given to someone else, namely her husband), but it looks like a stretch to me, the interpretation that her works cause her to be praised in the gates seems more natural.

Given the context however, that we have already been told that her husband sits in the gate of the city, the LXX version makes obvious sense - I can imagine people seeing her husband in the gates and praising him there for having such a great wife. Yet, at the same time, what is her husband wearing? The things we have been told about her making. So I can also imagine people seeing him sitting in the gate wearing a robe she had made, and people praising her for the works she had made in the gates, which is what the Hebrew states. Both can be true simultaneously.

Which illustrates why Augustine stated that both the Hebrew and the LXX had merit, both being inspired, in order to give us different perspectives that give a more rounded understanding. It's easy to dismiss Augustine's perspective as being a cop-out, but was he really wrong? This verse is quite interesting when considered both ways.
 
Just getting list of all sexual phraseology would be useful. It would be interesting list.

For start:
One flesh; man knowing woman

By the way, way more interesting would be phrases not directly related to sex.
 
Well, that was just one example. There are others. For instance, Gen 5:2. Did He call "them Adam", "them man", "them mankind", or "them the man"? And, because there's a point to this one as well, is it the same or different from how the same word is used in 3:9?
 
FollowingHim said:
Ok, that's beyond me. Greek's not as difficult as Hebrew, and the LXX clearly states "let her husband be praised in the gates", so I can see why you're asking the question. I do not know whether the Hebrew can be interpreted that way (with the praise given to someone else, namely her husband), but it looks like a stretch to me, the interpretation that her works cause her to be praised in the gates seems more natural.

Given the context however, that we have already been told that her husband sits in the gate of the city, the LXX version makes obvious sense - I can imagine people seeing her husband in the gates and praising him there for having such a great wife. Yet, at the same time, what is her husband wearing? The things we have been told about her making. So I can also imagine people seeing him sitting in the gate wearing a robe she had made, and people praising her for the works she had made in the gates, which is what the Hebrew states. Both can be true simultaneously.

Which illustrates why Augustine stated that both the Hebrew and the LXX had merit, both being inspired, in order to give us different perspectives that give a more rounded understanding. It's easy to dismiss Augustine's perspective as being a cop-out, but was he really wrong? This verse is quite interesting when considered both ways.
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Why do you think that Greek is easier than Hebrew to learn/understand?
 
The two men I know here in the forum who are most knowledgeable about those languages are @frederick and @ABlessedMan

I personally know the latter and he’s the one I normally discuss those things with.
 
phaedrus said:
Why do you think that Greek is easier than Hebrew to learn/understand?
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Simply because it is more familiar to an English speaker. We already know much of the alphabet as it's still used in maths & science symbology, and many words are related to English words with similar meanings (for instance ἐν, pronounced "en", means "in" - it's almost the exact same word - and words like "pneuma" which are the root of English words with similar meanings). Hebrew is far more alien - read right to left, completely different alphabet, fewer words but with denser meaning in each word. It's not as bad when written in the archaic original Hebrew / Phonecian script, which has many similarities to the Greek & Latin alphabets, but it's never written in that script in practice.
 
NVIII said:
Well, that was just one example. There are others. For instance, Gen 5:2. Did He call "them Adam", "them man", "them mankind", or "them the man"? And, because there's a point to this one as well, is it the same or different from how the same word is used in 3:9?
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Based on concordances: I'd say "them mankind". And it's different to 3:9, because 3:9 refers to uses a third person singular suffix, to refer to the man Adam individually, while 5:2 uses a third person plural suffix, to refer to both of them.
 
FollowingHim said:
Simply because it is more familiar to an English speaker. We already know much of the alphabet as it's still used in maths & science symbology, and many words are related to English words with similar meanings (for instance ἐν, pronounced "en", means "in" - it's almost the exact same word - and words like "pneuma" which are the root of English words with similar meanings). Hebrew is far more alien - read right to left, completely different alphabet, fewer words but with denser meaning in each word. It's not as bad when written in the archaic original Hebrew / Phonecian script, which has many similarities to the Greek & Latin alphabets, but it's never written in that script in practice.
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Attic Greek is the only thing I've ever studied that made me feel stupid and when I told my professor as much he said I was doing great--I was in the top of my class. He then told me that he taught Greek at university for 7 years as a professor before he really felt like he had a handle on it. I've had others who have learned both Hebrew and Greek say that the more you learn Hebrew, the more you understand Hebrew. While the more you study Greek, the less you fee like you have a grasp on Greek. After taking Attic Greek as my foreign language requirement at college, I can say that I know enough to know that I know nothing about Greek. Greek is so complicated it becomes rather insane.
 
phaedrus said:
Attic Greek is the only thing I've ever studied that made me feel stupid and when I told my professor as much he said I was doing great--I was in the top of my class. He then told me that he taught Greek at university for 7 years as a professor before he really felt like he had a handle on it. I've had others who have learned both Hebrew and Greek say that the more you learn Hebrew, the more you understand Hebrew. While the more you study Greek, the less you fee like you have a grasp on Greek. After taking Attic Greek as my foreign language requirement at college, I can say that I know enough to know that I know nothing about Greek. Greek is so complicated it becomes rather insane.
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First time ever that more knowledge produces less understanding.
 
MemeFan said:
Dunning-Kruger is when you know more, you start to understand how much you don't know. But domains what you know, you know them well.

My understanding is that you understand less of what you already what, not what else you don't understand.
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I'd say it's just more that you think you understand things at first because you're learning some very basic parts of Greek. Furthermore, some things seem familiar at first glance which adds to your false belief that you understand it. The first month I took Greek, I thought I kind of understood it. By the end of my first term, I thought I was completely out of my depth. I think Hebrew is different because the language itself is easier though the initial learning curve is higher for the reasons FollowingHim mentioned. That's not my opinion by the way. I don't know Hebrew. I just know that Attic Greek is an extremely precise language and far from easy to understand. My opinions on the differences between the two comes from another person who knows both languages. So take it for what it's worth.
 
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