S. A. Kaufman has taken in hand to offer some critiques
and corrections to my recently published Dictionary of Qumran Aramaic.
Some of his remarks deserve
consideration, while others reflect plain misreadings of the book or of the
texts in question. While I am grateful
for the attention paid to the book by such an eminent Aramaist, and for the
occasional faint praise, I deplore the overall snide and bullying tone of the
piece, as well as the liberal, and unwarranted, use of
the rhetoric of certainty, wherein Kaufman, speaking de haut en bas, frequently
attaches “clearly” and “surely” to his own unsupported pronouncements.
One of the drawbacks to Kaufman’s review is that he
evidently failed to read the introduction, in which he would have found
discussions of some of the issues he raises.
For instance, he regrets that I did not include the vocabulary of the
Geniza Aramaic Levi Document, a decision that I discussed on page xviii. I still believe that this is a reasonable choice.
He also has no use for or, apparently, comprehension of,
some of my remarks on prepositions (he uses the word “gibberish” at one point),
although I briefly discussed the rationale for including them on p. xix. The problem with prepositions is that their
meaning is typically vague (in the technical semantic
sense), highly dependent on context for their
construal, and therefore dictionary entries of them tend to be long lists of
contextual senses or translation equivalents.
I find this unsatisfactory, and I look with favor on semanticists who
attempt to find some unity in the multiple uses of a preposition. Some
do this by the identification of an invariate core, others by tracing
the ramifications of metaphorical extension.
My brief characterizations of some of the prepositions in DQA were at
least a gesture toward this semantic project, and an attempt to bring them into
practical lexicographical use. None of
these issues are on Kaufman’s radar at all.
He also apparently did not read, or take to heart, my
explanation of why Greek and Hebrew equivalents were included (p. xvii). In no case are they used, or appealed to, as
determining the sense of a particular word (except for rare words or
problematic cases). He believes, for
some reason, that I translated דרתה in
4Q197 (Tobit) as “courtyard” simply because the LXX uses αὐλῆς for דרתה; and that context favors simply
“house.” But private houses at that
time, even small ones, were typically built around a central courtyard through
which entrance was gained; so that when Reuel is found sitting “before the gate
of his courtyard” it means exactly the same as sitting “before the gate of his
house.” Presumably in later dialects
(such as the Jewish Babylonian Aramaic appealed to by Kaufman) דרה came to denote “house” simpliciter via metonymy. But
evidence is lacking to show that this was the case in QA.
Another case of Kaufman’s
misconstrual of my purposes is also found in Tobit (4Q196), [ולא
]בר לה אחרן, which I translated as “he has no other child.” Kaufman believes that I included the gloss
“child of either sex” for בר with this citation,
solely because the LXX translates it by τέκνον.
But this is not so. In context
(Tobit 3:15), Sara, Reuel’s daughter, is speaking, and she says, “I am the only
child of my father; and besides me, he has no other בר.” Since Sara is a female,
she must be included in the wider meaning of בר. This is clear without appeal to the Greek,
and in fact I made no appeal to the Greek.
Finally, I shall address
Kaufman’s characterization of DQA as a whole, namely, that it is not an “academic
lexicon” because it lacks “an indication of the vocalization and morphological
structures of well-known words, lists of derived forms for verbs, or even a
guide for students as to what words are common elsewhere in Aramaic and what
are relatively or extremely rare.” This suggests that Kaufman has not fully
understood the purpose of a specialized lexicon for a very small corpus such as
QA, which contains only about 20,000 word tokens and about 1,500 word types. With
such a small corpus, it is possible to include most of the occurrences in the
entries, but it is not possible to provide, say, “lists of derived forms for
verbs” because the occurrences of all but extremely common verbs are too few
for such a list -- as pointed out on p. xix of the introduction that Kaufman ignores,
where the question of vocalization is also addressed. With respect to “morphological
structures,” I am not sure what Kaufman is referring to, or what information in
addition to the headword, root, and exemplification might satisfy him. As for
the last point, I fail to see the purpose of providing a guide for what words
are common or rare in other Aramaic dialects; DQA is not a textbook for
introductory classes in Aramaic.
It should also be pointed
out that the Qumran Aramaic corpus is different from other, larger, Aramaic
corpora, in that each text in the corpus has been published in DJD with
detailed notes and concordances, collected and re-collected in a variety of
anthological publications, and several have been the subject of encyclopedia
articles, commentaries, and popular books. There are at least two book-length
grammars of QA (by Schattner-Reiser and Muraoka), a separate printed concordance
with full line references, and a variety of electronic publications, including
CAL, which makes retrieval of all the data quite straightforward. Therefore Kaufman’s complaint about the lack
of “an index to cited passages” is captious in the extreme. (The forthcoming electronic publication of DQA
will also make such an index superfluous.)
As for the rest, it would
be tiresome, and tiring, to register counter-comments to each of Kaufman’s
comments, nor do all of them warrant opposition. I shall limit myself to a few cases,
especially those where, in my opinion, Kaufman has overlooked evidence or committed an
egregious error.
For זעק, Kaufman says that the Aphel “makes no sense morphologically or
semantically” and says it must be Pael; and yet in CAL s.v. zʿq the root
appears only in the G, C (Aphel), Gt, and Ct stems. The root does not appear to
be used in the D stem (Pael) at all in Aramaic.
In connection with a
citation under the root חלם II, Kaufman says, “This
reading and interpretation of לבר is impossible”; but
he offers no reasons for this opinion and no alternative. I would readily accept, by the way, an
emendation of המון to מנהון
(in the phrase לבר המון) although it is
drastic.
With regard to the entry חתף, Kaufman says, “But since when does a
Qumran Aramaic imperfect express the general present as in SBH [Standard
Biblical Hebrew]?” Well, two possible examples are in the Genesis Apocryphon:
כל בתולן וכלאן די יעלן לגנון לא ישפרן מנהא,
“no virgins or brides who enter the bridal canopy are more beautiful
than she” (20:6), although these could be construed as modals. But חדה לחדה ידבקון, “each clings
to each” (11QtgJob 36:1-2) is an undeniable example of an imperfect used as a
general present.
Kaufman’s note on יאש is to the point; if the opportunity arises
for a second edition, I shall incorporate it.
Kaufman says “
‘chastisement’ [יסור] elsewhere is always a
plural form.” Always? Not in Tg. Jeremiah 30:14 יִסּוּר אַכְזְרָאִין,
“chastisement of cruel men.” If Mishnaic Hebrew is relevant, then we also have אין ייסור גדול מזה (b. Sanh. 45a).
For נגד I and II, he says baldly, “This is a single root.” I would like to see some justification for
this, since prima facie there is no semantic connection between “pull,
lengthen” and “scourge.”
For נחיר, Kaufman says the lemma should be plural or dual. In response,
I can do no better than to cite CAL s.v. nḥyr: “normally in the pl.
(originally: dual!), but with some major exceptions, especially in poetry.” In
general, words for body-parts (such as יד
or רגל) are not given dual forms in dictionary headwords,
although in use they may be predominantly dual or plural. (This is also relevant
for Kaufman’s remark on חלץ.)
For סגר, Kaufman says “it only acquires the connotation ‘to hand over’
when used with ביד.” And that is how it
is used in the cited passage (1QGenAp 22:17)! Kaufman’s remark is inexplicable.
For the preposition על, Kaufman claims that English “over” can be
used as a translation equivalent in “virtually” every case. Really? For עלת על
בתאנוש, for instance, what is better, “I came to Bitenosh” or “I came
over Bitenosh” (1QGenAp 2:3)? This is a silly suggestion.
Kaufman makes the
following remark: “קץ n. m. time; end:
The examples of ‘end’ (קצוי)
are from קצה
not from קץ.”
In DQA the forms קצוי are in fact booked under קצה, so Kaufman’s “correction” is to an entry that does not exist.
*Edited later to remove personal expressions of pique, which I regret.
*Edited later to remove personal expressions of pique, which I regret.
Very well said, thank you.
ReplyDelete