@Davïd Also in follow-up to a prior conversation (I’m not going to find that one): apparently Accordance’s Hebrew syntax module was actually developed by Holmstedt and friends because he thought he could do better than Logos. I haven’t worked with it much. He always sounds very convincing, though. :-)

@Susan Hiya - just on my first coffee. :) What do you think about this Q? Looks close-worthy to me, but I might be trigger-happy.

@Davïd Yeah, probably. I have wondered why we don't have critical texts for the HB in the same way we do for the NT, though. Instead, there are all of these proposed emendations that show up in translations but don’t get integrated into the Hebrew text. Because the MT is ‘fixed’ or whatever. Except that everybody agrees pieces of it are wrong. I’m probably missing something....

@Susan Fascinating find. I think the "syntax" modules are quite separate from the morphological database. Much more heavily dependent on judgment calls, imo.

@Susan Article on its way.....

@Susan This does a pretty fine job of setting out some of the issues.

(Sorry - that wasn't the best of links for Williamson's article. Too late to edit now, so there's another one.)

@Susan As for that older one, I think I had in mind the fascination that Dahood (and some others) had for finding meanings derived from Ugaritic in the Hebrew Bible. That combined with the hold-over of the 19th C confidence in "correcting" ancient texts.

@Davïd Most of those decisions get made for every translation, though, right? So if we can’t be “confident,” then...

@Susan With the DSS in particular, the scenario changed, and there was greater reluctance to see emendation as a first port of call.

@Susan It's different for Greek MSS, whether NT or LXX, where one can with reasonable confidence think the text flowed off a pen in a "recoverable" form. That's not the case for the Hebrew Bible where alphabet, spelling conventions, grammatical structures, all demonstrably changed from the time of the "text's" origin to our first glimpses of it in writing.

(Terminology gets tricky here, esp. in "chat"!)

If you have access to Brevard Childs' Introduction to the OT as Scripture his section on this (pp. 96-99) does a pretty good job, too, as I recall.

@Susan Unless we're speaking at cross-purposes. This is in aid of: "I have wondered why we don't have critical texts for the HB in the same way we do for the NT...". :)

@Davïd That makes sense. I just find it confusing that they don’t just go ahead and change things to look like what they’re proposing they mean when English translations agree that the Hebrew should be emended (based on another text or otherwise). There’s probably an anachronism of sorts that would be involved with that exercise though, I guess. Anyway, I’ll do some reading. Thanks for the suggestions.

@Susan That's what Ron Hendel's project is supposed to do. First volume is out, and I've seen it. Hope to get a closer look soon. And yes, the fear of anachronism looms large!

@Susan Btw - could have sworn there was another theme picked up in the last 24 (12?) hrs which I can't now see.... Someone must have a particularly powerful eraser.

@Davïd Theme? I’m confused.

@Susan Unless I'm going slightly gaga (always a possibility) ... topic? Inerrancy?

Or going blind (also a possibility).

@Susan Confused! It was the C.SE post. And me getting confused.

@Davïd Oh, that, yes. It was tangentially related. But very much C.SE stuff.

@Susan Interesting question. Could get a very long answer!

@Davïd I would be very happy if it did. For most questions on BH I can locate the appropriate resources (with a little help ;-) ) and, with enough time, understand them, so I don’t strictly need an answer here. (There are some exceptions.) I’m not really familiar enough with whatever people write about doctrine to find an answer to that myself.

@Davïd I love how the links at the bottom to take you to the next page say, “Go to page 157 !" It does conjure up a sense of excitement....

Hm, bolding within “words” isn’t working for me today.

@Davïd Wow, that’s pretty much exactly what I was wondering about.

(If only I could make it into a PDF.)

The Jeremiah example is especially helpful.

> The result would be that...the Hebrew text would be almost entirely a retroversion from the Greek....This would be an extremely interesting scholarly exercise, but whether it would be appropriate in an edition calling itself the Bible is something on which opinions could well differ.

@Davïd And, in way of feedback, no, I did not know what a ‘palimpsest’ is, but I do now. Thank you.

@Susan I went with your advice. Hope it meets the need.