Search

Medieval Karaites advocated independent interpretation of the Scripture and considered grammatical knowledge indispensable for understanding the true meaning of the Bible. A distinctive stage in the development of the Karaite grammatical tradition is constituted by pedagogical grammars of Biblical Hebrew intended for beginning students. These grammars concentrate on verbal morphology and employ numerous didactic strategies designed to facilitate learning and equip students with tools for the independent investigation of the biblical text. The present article describes the Karaite framework of presenting the verbal morphology of Biblical Hebrew and studies didactic tools developed in Karaite pedagogical grammars, including lucid sample paradigms, the gradual character of presentation, rules of derivational relations, systems of mnemonics, algorithms of parsing verbal forms, and model analyses of biblical passages.

Qohelet 6:9a is not a gut-spruch. It highlights the disparity between appearance and reality, which introduces uncertainty in knowledge that is at the base of man ignorance and Qohelet's skeptical outlook. The disparity between 'seen' and 'is' makes everything vague as "hebel", and the disappointment in unmet expectations qualifies it as "retsout roua'". Qoh. 6:9 should be rendered: Better the sight of the eyes, then what goes in the throat, That too, vapour, and chasing of wind.

This article presents all the textual variants in the smaller Isaiah Scroll from Cave One (1Q8 or 1QIsa b ), also known as the 'Hebrew University Isaiah Scroll', which preserves material ranging from Isa. 7:20 to 66:24. With respect to textual character, 1QIsa b has been classified as protoMasoretic in view of its general affinity with the received Masoretic Text. For the forthcoming edition of 1QIsa b (vol. 32 in the series 'Discoveries in the Judaean Desert'), a variant reading is determined wherever 1QIsa b differs from another Hebrew witness (Qumran scrolls, such as 1QIsa a , the MT as in the Leningrad Codex, or other Masoretic manuscripts and editions). In a few cases, the collation is against the Septuagint, but difference from the Greek is not a fixed criterion for determining a variant reading.

The paper discusses nominal clause patterns in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Nominal clauses were collected from several Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) that represent an independent language, and are not late versions of biblical texts. These are Pesher Habakkuk, the Damascus Document, the War Scroll, The Temple Scroll, and Serekh Ha- Yahad. The DSS nominal clause patterns revealed in these sources can be divided into two major groups: (1) simple nominal clauses in the order of predicate-subject or of subject-predicate, and (2) extended nominal clauses involving extraposition. Although both word orders of the simple nominal clauses found in the DSS exist in Biblical Hebrew, those of the DSS display more restrictions in their preference for a certain word order with certain types of predicates. The DSS simple nominal clauses in the order of subject-predicate also contain a pattern, unknown in Biblical Hebrew and limited in Mishnaic Hebrew, in which the predicate is a content clause. This pattern appears only in Pesher Habakkuk, and its content clause is introduced there by the subordinate, more commonly relative particle, asher. Extended patterns appear to be very rare in the DSS, and they mostly include clauses also labeled as the exegetical formula, which show similarity to a certain type of appositional clauses in Biblical Hebrew.