Sibyl: "Oracle"

The Classical Review (New Series), 2009

דברי המפגשים ה- 31 וה-32 של החוג לבלשנות ע"ש חיים רוזן, עמ' 42-63.

This paper examines the adverbial Hebrew "bixlal" diachronically , from its initial use in the Mishnah as a 'categorical widener' to its Modern Hebrew use as a 'discourse widener' (widening the gap between two elements within the discourse). The claim is that the semantic change of this operator was conducted via the operator's widening function.

The book mentioned in the title is a pioneering work. It was deliberately published as a premature work, with the intention of smoothing the path for any further, more advanced attempt. One of the major obstacles was the lack of a reference work on the word-roots of Egyptian. The situation in this section is particularly tricky as Egyptian phonetics are both complex and controversial, with variant roots that display sound changes of the pre-Egyptian and historical Egyptian periods. Work on an Afroasiatic lexicon should therefore involve a specialist on Egyptian lexicography and phonetics. Lexicographical work should also be based on broad Egyptological (philological, historical, archaeological) knowledge. There is a blatant example for this in the material in question.

The Northwest Semitic word sglt, vocalized səgullâ in Tiberian Hebrew and usually translated as "special possession" or the like, has attracted a good deal of discussion because of its theological importance (as an epithet for Israel in relation to God) and because of its connection with practices of covenant-making, legal transaction, and vassal rulership. Despite the discussion that has surrounded this word, its etymology remains obscure. Relevant data are found in ancient Egyptian, Akkadian, Ugaritic, Biblical Hebrew, Arabic, and Latin textual corpora, but scholars within these disciplines, for the most part, have not availed themselves of each other's insights. A rare few have noticed the connections but have not elaborated upon them. However, its etymology not only leads to a better understanding of the relevant Hebrew, Ugaritic, Egyptian, and Arabic textual passages but also offers many informative glimpses of cultural contact.

The history and influence of the various oracle traditions of the ancient and classical Mediterranean world is long and complex. This paper charts the oracle history, extending over several thousand years, from the 18th Dynasty of Egypt (c. 1550 B.C.E.) through the rise and fall of Greek and Roman culture (c. 500 C.E) and shows the interconnections between the many oracle sites. I also give some account of the actual practices, the temple appointees, and the text traditions. This is an older paper but still contains considerable information.

Ugarit-Forschungen, 2020

In line 3 of the inscription of Šiloaḥ the ancient Hebrew word זדה is mentioned, which so far could not be reliably translated. In this article, a new etymological derivation from the Akkadian word ṣaddu(m) ‘sign’ is proposed. The solution proposed by Manfred Görg in 1980 that this noun is an Egyptian loan word is firmly rejected.

The project of a network on the Semantics of Ancient Hebrew was approved by the Executive Council of the European Science Foundation twenty years ago now, with the aim of planning a critical database on the semantics of Ancient Hebrew. It is not a matter of creating a thesaurus, but a different work in which to collect the semantic data and all recent associated scientific literature. Florence is one of the universities which is involved in this project, supervised, in Florence, by Professor Ida Zatelli. My paper is a sample entry for such a database. It is structured according to a peculiar framework proposed by the executive committee of the project. The lexeme is sml and the analysis takes into consideration the morphology of the lexeme, its root and etymology, formal characteristics, syntagmatics, versions, lexical field, exegesis. The more relevant scientific literature on the issue has been examined.