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- From: jlove@ivrit.ra.itd.umich.edu (Jack Love)
- Newsgroups: alt.messianic
- Subject: Re: Rashi's quote (was Re: Almah - Betulah)
- Date: 25 Jan 1993 19:37:24 GMT
- Organization: /usr/local/trn/lib/organization
- Lines: 43
- Message-ID: <1k1fhkINNppq@terminator.rs.itd.umich.edu>
- References: <KRULWICH.93Jan19160058@zowie.ils.nwu.edu> <LJMORLY.93Jan21113710@polaris.utu.fi> <KRULWICH.93Jan25112343@zowie.ils.nwu.edu>
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-
- In article <KRULWICH.93Jan25112343@zowie.ils.nwu.edu> krulwich@zowie.ils.nwu.edu (Bruce Krulwich) writes:
- >veyesh potrin and there are those who interpret
- > [the "sign" that is mentioned in Is.]
- >she'zeh ha'os that this is the sign
- > ["os" is the Ashkenazic pronounciation]
- >she'alma hi'sa that she was an "alma"
- >v'eina re'uya li'valed and was not capable of giving birth
-
- I agree with Dov in this posting, and I can now see the full context
- for the rabbinic Hebrew involved. My apologies for suggesting a
- nifal in my earlier post, that is clearly incorrect. Because
- sometimes a.m. is a fairly "charged" atmosphere, let me make clear
- that I am retracting only my statement that "livaled" could be
- nifal; the question as to whether one could read "livaled" in
- isolated translitoration and think that it might be nifal is still
- open. But, in context, "livaled" is clearly pi'el and means "to
- give birth." Because transliteration is a difficult art, I would
- suggest that vocalizing "sheva" should be rendered by the "'"
- sign: l'valed. This would have made the sentence clearer (at
- least in my mind). The problem with "i" is that it is often
- associated with the "ee" pronunciation in English. Thus, the
- nifal infinitive l'hivaled (l'heevaled) can contract in rabbinic
- Hebrew to "livaled" pronounced "leevaled". If we had a pointed
- text of Rashi, we would see a dagesh hazaq in the lamed. Unfortunately,
- as far as I know, there are no authentically pointed Rashi texts.
- (By the way, it is not even certain that the text in question was
- written by Rashi, but that's another story...)
-
- Earlier in this thread, one of the a.m. stalwarts (either Harvey Smith
- or Bill Carlson) said something about the root of the word being
- vav.lamed.dalet versus yod.lamed.dalet. In the period of which
- we are speaking (rabbinic Hebrew circa Rashi), in my opinion it
- is best to regard the root as vav.lamed.dalet. However,
- lexicographers tend to use their own internal schema, so you
- might find the word listed under that root or yod.lamed.dalet
- depending on that schema. The historical root for all of the
- words in question is vav.lamed.dalet. But in the Biblical
- period, these roots (first vav) migrated to first yod, and
- this pattern has held ever since.
- --
- ________________________________________
- Jack F. Love | Opinions expressed are mine alone.
- | (Unless you happen to agree.)
-