Loanwords in Biblical Hebrew

A review essay of Joe M. Sprinkle, Daniel, Evangelical Biblical Theology Commentary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham, 2020) and J. Paul Tanner, Daniel, Evangelical Exegetical Commentary (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Academic, 2020), considering two questions: What are the distinctive features that mark the commentaries by Sprinkle and Tanner as conservative evangelical commentaries? How can scholars who, like me, work within the mainstream approach to the Book of Daniel, engage with and profit from reading such commentaries?

Why did you translate the Hebrew word "tachash" as "sea cows" in Exodus? I understand that the meaning of the Hebrew word has been lost to time, and the translation in the 1984 NIV was also sea cows, but I've never liked this translation. The KJV has the word translated as badger skins, and other translations read dolphin skins or seal skins, but these are all unclean animals that God would not have commanded the Israelites to cover his sacred objects with. The only thing we really know about the word is that it was some type of high-quality skin or leather. Sea cow skins is a very specific translation of a very ambiguous word. Wouldn't it have been better to keep a more ambiguous translation such as "fine leather"? I feel that using the translation "sea cows" can send the wrong message to some people that God allowed unclean animal skins to come into contact with the sacred objects.

Over recent decades it has become clear that the Hebrew biblical texts kept growing and developing to a remarkable extent even in relatively late times. A better understanding of this process is crucial in interpreting the texts. In this two-year collaboration between the Faculty of Theology and the Department of Computer Science at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, we will perform a machine learning-based investigation of the textual and linguistic history of the Hebrew Bible, based on the biblical texts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. No adequate method exists to achieve this, so we will develop one, using Machine Learning techniques, a subfield of Artificial Intelligence, in which important advances have been made during the last decade. Artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence has become a lot more intelligent over the past decade. This is evident in e.g., Google searches, or in Google Translate. It's also observable in our smartphones. Developments happen incrementally and continuously and so they sneak up on you, but if you compare today's phones and services to those of ten years ago, it's an astounding development. What we are doing in this project also would not have been possible until very recently. Great improvements have happened on three fronts to make this possible. Firstly, new methods in the field of Machine Learning have proved to be very effective. Secondly, hardware development has reached a stage where massive calculations are widely available, without having to wait long for just one calculation to finish. They can even be done for free on e.g., Google's servers. Thirdly, and most importantly, repositories of digitized ancient texts have grown immensely, and many are available for free online, e.g., GitHub.

Ancient Egyptian (and Nubian) leather craft has gained much attention in the last two decades, after having been largely neglected for a long time. Obviously, this is a very positive development, but, as so often, inconsistencies, different terminologies and limited approaches make a proper understanding of leathercraft, in all its aspects, more complex and often confusing. Moreno García’s excellent contribution to “The Arts of Making in Ancient Egypt” (2017) is to be appreciated as it emphasises the importance of the study of leather, particularly using the archaeological record. His paper has many insightful comments, with his conclusion on the use of castor oil in leather production, based on textual evidence, providing an important and promising direction that certainly provides a basis for further study. He also links Nubian and Egyptian leather industries, which provides much food for thought. There are, however, some inconsistent use of terminologies, and a few misinterpretations that create confusion in even this work, and that also create misunderstanding leatherwork, and thus need some additional attention and explanation.

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.

One of the persistent problems related to the study of the book of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible is explaining the fact that the book is written in two languages, viz. [8][9][10][11][12] and . This problem is intensified by another peculiarity: over and above the two languages, two literary types can also be distinguished in the book. The first six chapters of the book of Daniel (1:1-6:29) contain narratives (court tales) and the last six chapters (7:1-12:13) contain what have been labelled as visions. Thus, the language division is dissimilar to the division based on literary type. This gave rise to the hypothesis that Daniel 1 and/or Daniel 7 might be translated texts. However, no conclusive grounds for proving such a hypothesis have been presented. On the basis of developments in modern translation studies and especially the identification of certain "universals of translation" this paper again looks at the issue of whether Daniel 1 and/or Daniel 7 could be viewed as translated texts. In this case a specific "universal of translation" is tested in relation to Daniel 1 and Daniel 7 in order to determine to what extent these texts exhibit the features pertaining to translated texts. This endeavour is aided by the fact that other translations of these texts (e.g. the Old Greek) can serve as control mechanisms for deductions in this regard.