Janeen Grohsmeyer <
darkpanther@...> wrote:
Subject: backwards Hebrew
No offense intended, but this [reversals in Hebrew]
reminds me of Pig Latin. Um ... Camel Hebrew?
Janeen
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Lee Daniel Quinn wrote:
> For many years, scholars have been translating Phoenician tablets.
> They have thousands of them -- most being what we would call
> bills of lading or shipping manifests. For a while they gave up
> because they were all about the same.
> An unnamed translator kept at it, and found that there were two
> parties that added, at the bottom of the regular lists, notes
> of a personal nature. These findings were very interesting.
> The reason for the above comment is that, in a note from one man
> to the other, he said, in essence:
> Did you hear about John's wife? She has become
> paralyzed. She has, what they say in this area,
> "turned into a pillar of salt."
Lee, its time for you to start a new career, in Biblical exegesis.
I agree with you. Lot's wife became paralyzed. Here's why:
The Hebrew phrase for "became a pillar of salt" is:
N'TZiB MeLaX (where X = het)
TZiB is a euphemistic reversal of BoTZ = mire, mud
When you, or more likely your wagon, become mired in the mud,
you can't move.
A Hebrew word for paralysis is shin-bet-tzadi SHaBaTZ
= cramp, convulsion; apoplexy, i.e., a sudden, usu. marked,
loss of bodily function due to rupture or occlusion of
a blood vessel. The initial shin in this word functions
as a prefix meaning "that which is caused by or results from".
Compare: SHiTaFoN = flood < shin + ToFaN = typhoon, storm.
The MeLaX = salt is a euphemistic reversal of het-lamed-mem
XaLaM = to be healthy, be strong. That is, she became weak
and not healthy, probably as the result of a stroke or
aneurysm.
Israel Cohen
izzy_cohen@...
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Frantz wrote:
> I found this very interesting, specially the note
> on the ancient script. But I find interpreting the
> Bible by reading Hebrew backwards to be very poor
> exegesis, just like the so called Bible Codes.
This particular instance does *not* require
"reading Hebrew backwards". It only requires
the biblical usage of a euphemistic idiom:
"pillar of salt" = "paralysis".
The reversal could have occurred "outside"
of Hebrew [in a neighboring language] and
have been borrowed "as is".
It is also not uncommon to borrow a phrase from another
language, respell the sounds so that the phrase uses
existing words in the target language, and then use
the phrase without changing the original meaning.
Examples in English include:
raining "(pole)cats and dogs",
raining "cats and ducks" in Pennsylvania Dutch,
let the "cat out of the bag",
"spill the beans",
"kick (the) bucket", etc.
Israel Cohen
izzy_cohen@...