A Hebrew Sojourn (Part II)

This entry grew in the blogging. I will break it into two parts.

First, the Hebrew language is consonantal in nature. By that I mean that there are no written vowels in it. It is constructed entirely of consonants in its written form. There are vowels, but they are only expressed when the Hebrew is spoken, not when written. Part of the beauty of the Hebrew language is that it is inherently more poetic than most because words can have several meanings.

For example, cat, acute, cut, cite, act would all be acceptable renderings of “ct” if English operated in the same way as Hebrew. Since the vowel(s) do not appear, we would have to look at the overall context of the sentence to determine which of those meanings that "ct" has. Now, context will dictate the meaning of Hebrew words and provide the reader with a high degree of precision in correctly understanding the meaning of the text.

Around the ninth century a group of scholars called the Masoretes became worried that the Hebrew language would die out and that no one would remember how to pronounce it. So they invented a vowel system that could be written underneath the consonantal text. Thus their text is referred to as the Masoretic Text. This text is the basis for all major translations today (NKJV, NIV, HSB, etc). (BTW most Jewish scholars do not use the text with the vowels written in. They refer to the vowels as “training wheels”).

This page illustrates the difference between a text with vowels and a text without vowels. Scroll about half way down to see a line of Hebrew without vowels. Then scroll down a bit further to see a line with vowels. The vowels are a series of dots and dashes underneath the Hebrew words.

(Just to throw a little controversy into this entry, most who read this blog would concur that the consonants (written from around 2000 to 100 BC) are inspired, but what about the vowels (added to the text 8 centuries after Christ)? Are the vowels, added centuries after the writing of even the New Testament inspired in the same way as the original text?? Just thinking aloud).

But here is the key point of this entry: The Hebrew language is composed of consonants with vowels added at a later time.

SO WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!

(Tomorrow we will look at the names of God in Hebrew.)