[B-Greek] WSANNA getting data right

Randall Buth randallbuth at gmail.com
Mon Feb 20 18:53:39 EST 2006


Strangely, this didn't appear on the list, so I am resending. Please
note, my original statements have > marking them, Donald's responding
comments have no mark, and my responses to Donald's have **opening and
closing the comments.

Donald,
EUXARISTW SOI PERI THS SOU EPISTOLHS

Since my program doesn't insert ">" I will intersperse ** for some
comments below.

Randall Buth, PhD
Director, Biblical Language Center
www.BiblicalUlpan.org
buth at jerusalemschool.org
and Lecturer, Biblical Hebrew
Rothberg, Hebrew University
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il

= = =
Ah! Randall joins the fray. Always a welcome addition. I will
interspace my comments directly beneath his.

Donald R. Vance, Ph.D.
Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature
Oral Roberts University
dvance at oru.edu
donaldrvance at mac.com
On Feb 19, 2006, at 2:58 PM, Randall Buth wrote:

> Somewhat belatedly I see a long discussion on WSANNA and its pedigree.
> Several items could use some correction and the overall situation is
> more complex than is reflected in the posts.
>
> hosha`-na is colloquial Hebrew "please save", not Aramaic, not
> attested Biblical Hebrew.
> It also acquired a liturgical usage beyond its semantic origin. That
> liturgical usage may be reflected in the gospel stories, and shows up
> in later Hebrew, English, and European music.
>

A nice summary of your position. I obviously disagree.

**still?**

> The data follows.
> First of all, the normal, plain-vanilla, Hebrew imperative of this
> verb is
> hosha`.
> [hosha` is not an anomolous form. That is the verb and how any kid
> would've said it when attacked by bullies, if he didn't use the plural
> hoshi`u or another verb like hatsel or Hallets. Phonetically, hosha`
> is just like hatslaH 'do valiantly, be successful'. The 'a' vowel in
> the last syllable is normal with any pharyngeal fricative (`ayin/Het)
> ending an imperative.]

You are correct and I misspoke. See GKC sec. 65f.

** I am glad you accept this.
That means that Fitzmyer is also off-track in suggesting that hosha`
in the Bible could be aramaizing, when in fact it is a widespread
phonetic reflex within the Hebrew language. It does reveal the way he
thinks, though. **

>
> The [na] particle 'please' has nothing to do with lengthening the
> vowel of the final syllable of the single occurrence in the Hebrew
> Bible of hoshi`ah+na Ps 118:25. (It is the volitional "-ah" suffix,
> which is an extra, optional addition, that causes the form  hoshi`ah.)

This is what I was trying to say. Typing emails is an entirely ad hoc
enterprise. The addition of a suffix such as the lengthening /a/ or the
plural morpheme preserves the long i vowel by making its syllable open
(the third radical now begins the ultima instead of closing it).

**You agree, I hope, that "-ah" is a syntactic device and not a
phonological device? Also, –NA may be added to imperatives with or
without the extra volitional –AH suffix. To re-state the basic point,
whenever NA is added directly to a plain imperative the short form of
the imperative is REQUIRED.**

> Note the following occurrences of a common verb
> le-haggid "to tell, give a report". These show how "na" on its own
> actually preserves the short vowel:
>    hagged--na 'please tell' occurs 6 times. (Jos 7:19, 1Sm23:11,
> 2Sm1:4, 2Ki9:12, Jer36:17, 42:20) NOTE THE SHORT VOWEL "e". hosha` has
> 'a' as its SHORT vowel because of ` ayin.
>    haggidah--na 'please tell, would you' occurs 8 times. (Gn 32:29,
> 37:16, Ju16:6,10, 1S9:18, 10:15, Jer 38:25, Jon1:8.)
> [[please note: both short-vowel-form hagged 'tell' and long-vowel-form
> haggidah '[would you] tell' may occur without the particle 'na'.]]
>
> Note that with the particle "na" attached directly to the imperative,
> the SHORT-vowel is preserved [i.e., hagged--na].
> This happens regularly with the particle "na". If the verb is
> multi-syllable, then a short vowel and the "short form" of the verb
> are preserved. This happens tens of times in the Hebrew Bible and
> occurs with 2nd person imperatives with 'na' as well as with 3rd
> person volitionals [so-called jussives] For those interested, among
> those 30-60(?) examples, there are no examples in the Bible of a
> Hif`il imperative with a pharyngeal final consonant + na. Just good
> short forms like hakker-na, ha`ver-na.

Again, because -na begins with a consonant and thus does not require
the third radical to begin a syllable.  So, perhaps, you are correct
that a form such as Hosha<-na could occur. But why don't we ever find
such a form?

**why doesn't the word for "cat" [Hatul] ever occur in the Hebrew
Bible? Or "elephant"? NB: [pil] "elephant" would have occurred if 1
Maccabees was canonized. Why are most verbal paradigms filled with
holes?
The point to note and remember is that hosha` 'save' is well-formed in
HEBREW, in no way exceptional. Also, that le-hoshia` is a very common
verb in Hebrew. The rest is accident.**

What is interesting is that all of our examples only show
up with the lengthening /a/ before the precative particle. This, by the
way, is true in the MIshnah as well. I could find only one occurrence
of hosha<  and that without -na. Further, in a discussions of Psalm
118:25 (Suk. 3:9; 4:5) the Mishnah employs the lengthened form every
single time with -na.  I found one other instance of hoshi<a and it was
not followed by -na. So the data are hardly clear that Hosha<-na is
perfectly good and normal colloquial Hebrew.

**How does the fact that the Mishnah quotes, even repeats, a biblical
text, Ps 118:25 "hoshia`-ah--na", alter the well-formedness of
hosha`-na? It appears that you are confusing/comparing attestation of
a particular form, a random exercise, with well-formedness. As
mentioned, we have forms like hakker-na "recognize, please". (We NEVER
have *hakkir-na.) You can only make your claim about hoshi`-ah--na
being the unique Hebrew form IF you are willing to claim that –ah is a
fixed morphological feature for this particular verb. But we KNOW in
BH that –ah is an optional, syntactic particle. It is optionally added
to imperatives and other forms for rhetorical reasons, which is why I
cited a verb with both forms, short long (hagged//haggid-ah), and also
short/long+na. –ah is not a morphological requirement. That datum must
be internalized before discussing hosha`. Fitzmyer didn't.**

I would expect to find at
least one such example.

**why? Do you realize how rare this is? Offhand I only know of three
examples of a hif`il imperative with a final pharyngeal + na in the
whole Hebrew Bible, and two of those are Ps 118:24-25! If you have
some software you might find a couple more. Statistically, that is
nothing. Part of the reality of ancient languages is massive missing
data to the language. The trick is to recognize the difference between
accidental missing versus something systematically missing because it
was not part of the language. Hosha` was definitely part of the Hebrew
language. Hosha`-na is just missing but well-formed. I don't consider
0 out of 1 to be statistically relevant to anything. But the word
hosha` is systematically relevant, and the 400 examples of –NA are
systematically relevant.**

I wonder if the addition of -na could obscure
the ayin or het and the long form was used to clarify the guttural's
presence and thus avoid misunderstanding which root was intended.

**no. See two responses above at end. There is not so much as a blip
of trouble anywhere in BH with a syllable-final pharyngeal (`ayin/Het)
followed by a word/syllable-initial nun. (Syllable-final nun is a
whole different ballgame and totally irrelevant.) Plus, -NA is used
directly with other verbs that have `ayin or Het. Even with
imperatives, shma`-na (also shim`ah, but accidently no shim`ah-na, the
opposite of attested hoshi`-ah-na.) qaH 'take' (rarely qaH-na and
qH-ah, obvioiusly for rhetorical reasons rather than morphological).
Almost every verb in BH is riddled with massive accidental gaps in its
attestations of forms. We should never hypothesize that the gap is
intentional unless and until there is some systematic morphological or
phonological reason. Not hearing `ayin is an English reason, not a BH
reason; in fact those consonants are quite clear, stable, and distinct
when they are internalized. Note also that the later noun "hosha`-na"
has no problem with the guttural. It sometimes pains me to hear most
modern speakers use xaf for Het. In addition, there is no connection
between a massoretic helping vowel 'a' preceding a wordfinal guttural
and the morphological-syntactical suffix –ah. That suffix was
syntactic, not phonologically euphonic.
Please note: BH speakers would have understood hosha` instantly, it is
the normal form and there was no misunderstanding possible. Clear was
clear.
PS on a need to recognize roots: the ancients (as well as pre-puberty
moderns) didn't even think with roots, that is a modern
illusion/fallacy that has arisen from modern teaching methods.
(See my Selected Readings chapter on the binyanim. Same is true for
Arabic, too, should anyone wonder.
We get students who can't understand how it is possible that 'he got
close' is niggash (Nif`al), but the future is yiggash 'he will get
close' (Qal). Greek students sometimes get it quicker because they
have ESQIW/EFAGON, ERXOMAI/HLQON. One must internalize the system, the
real system attested in the texts, not artificial ones applied in some
grammar books. I've got a list of things that BH teachers do that are
not BH, but that would go far off topic.)
**

>
> The bottom line of this "short vowel" discussion is that the Hebrew
> imperative hosha` + "na" would have produced the form hosha`-na. NB:
> the form does not occur in the Hebrew Bible, but it is perfectly good
> Hebrew nonetheless. (If this isn't clear, please come to our summer
> Biblical Hebrew ulpan.)
>
> hosha`-na could produce WSANNA in Greek since the `ayin cannot be
> represented in Greek but it could be compensated with a doubled NN.
>
> Another datum:
> *osha` is not an Aramaic verb. I'll repeat that so it sinks in. *osha`
> is not attested as in use as an Aramaic verb. This is really pretty
> strong contradictory evidence against anyone who would argue that
> *osha` became so popular a word in Aramaic that it "froze" and was
> carried over into Greek, etc.

This statement is somewhat misleading. In 4Q243 16:2 we find the Aphel
of the root y-sh-< (weyosha<) "and he will save them." So, yes, the
form hosha<-na has not been found in Aramaic of this period, but the
root and the stem have and in the sense required. On the other hand,
hosha<-na has not been found in a Hebrew text either.

**Thank you for the citation. (None of the texts are at hand at the
moment. I hope the reading there is clear, and I have no reasaon to
doubt it.) Yes, here we have one occurrence of an Aramaic verb osha`
in Pseudo-Daniel (I should have remembered, though that hardly makes
*osha` a popular word in Aramaic.). Moreover, this doesn't make
Aramaic *osha` equal to Hebrew hoshia`. It is a delightful exception
that proves the rule. osha` remains as "not a normal Aramaic verb":
though it has one attestation in the Second Temple period it
disappears in JPA and Syriac.
Please note: this still doesn't argue for any kind of reasonable
probability of adding NA to an Aramaic imperative of osha`. Not only
is osha` rare in the extreme, the structure imperative+NA is only
natural and common in Hebrew. Consequently, there is no equality
between an accidental lack of the specific Hebrew form hosha`-na and a
systematic lack of the Aramaic verb *osha`, plus the form *osha`-na,
as well as the NA-structure in general within Aramaic. It's just not
in the cards for Aramaic. One could argue that it could be formed out
of biblical Hebrew, and then borrowed into Aramaic. I can't see that
anyone could argue that it is a natural choice in Aramaic, only that
the verb *osha` was not absolutely excluded from use within Aramaic.

> E.g., you will not find *osha` in the targumim where, e.g., Hebrew
> hoshia` is translated in Onkelos [praq] "he saved". You won't find the
> verb in Sokoloff JPA and JA, nor PayneSmith, interesting, no? I do
> remember reading an article once where the root y-sh-` (not the verb
> osha`, as I remember) was maybe found in some Aramaic text somewhere,
> MAYBE one partially-related example. That person then claimed that
> that showed that hosha` in the gospels was Aramaic. Shtuyot. It so
> clearly directs someone in the opposite direction to Hebrew that one
> can only shake their head and wonder what gets called scholarship.
>

The person to whom you are referring is Joseph Fitzmyer, in the article
Oun cited earlier. Besides 4Q243 16:2 cited above, the root shows up in
the Old Aramaic inscription from Tell Fekherye (also written Tell
Fakhariyah). The root and stem do occur in Aramaic--albeit sparsely
attested.

**One verb occurrence and one related word once in the history of the
language. That is so rare that one must wonder if 4Q243 is a Hebraism
in an Aramaic text. There are other Hebraisms in Qumranian Aramaic.**

The word Hosha<na does occur in the Talmud, granted as the
name of the lulab, but clearly derived from the text in Psa 118:25.

**??, the form in Ps118 is hoshi`-ah-na. hosha`-na is an independent
formation, so not derived from Ps118.**

On the other hand, the form Hosa<-na does not show up in a single Hebrew
text that I have been able to find, but I will take your word that it
shows up later.

**You just quoted the talmud (where it has an 60-80% chance of being
in a Hebrew context, probably both H and A.). Medieval and modern are
certain and listed in EvenShoshan dictionary.**

In precisely the place in the Mishnah where one would
expect to find it, one finds the long form hoshi<a-na as found in the
Bible. There are no examples of third guttural hiphil imperatives with
-na without the lengthening /a/ which preserves the long i vowel. The
data are equivocal at best.

**See above. They are not "equivocal" within the Hebrew system. There
was zero morpho-phonological reason to preserve the 'i' vowel.
However, [i] would be accidently preserved wherever the author wanted
to add the word "–ah" for contextual, rhetorical reasons.**

> Another datum:
> Aramaic does not like to use "na". The targum translates this into
> anything but "na" [e.g., beva`u "with a request", k`an]. When this is
> coupled with the lack of Aramaic having a verb *osha`, one wonders why
> people would consider credible the attribution of WSANNA to Aramaic?

Valid point. I found only one instance of -na in the Targums.

**Thank you. There are 404 –NA in BH. This should help someone get a
feel for the difference between HB and Aramaic and why I don't
consider Aramaic vs Hebrew a "close call", even a "possible call" in
the sense of realistic possibility. Realistically, one has to say that
hosha`-na is well-formed Hebrew, but difficult to even imagine in
Aramaic.**

>
> So what is WSANNA in the Gospels? "Greek", of course. While
> tongue-in-cheek, there is something remarkably true about this
> statement.
>
> Hosha`-na is a well-formed, colloquial Hebrew word, a form that could

This has not been demonstrated and is, in fact, not true according to
the data we have so far (see my comments above).

**wow, if we disagree on this, there isn't much to say.**

> not be taken directly from the Bible, that has been transferred into a
> name in later Hebrew, the "hosha`-na" branch, carried on the seventh
> day of Sukkot. There were apparently prayers applied to that day that
> started with this word/verb. It became the name of the seventh day of
> Sukkot, hosha`na rabba in medieval times). The gospels of Mark and
> Matthew might testify to a nominalized usage of "hosha`-na" already in
> the first century. "PLease-Save, (to) the son of David." OK, that can
> make some sense in an original context with slight adjustment. But
> what in the world would "hosanna in the highest places" mean in first
> century Hebrew? That strange phrase needs an article and more support
> before I commit my current thoughts publically.
>
> yevarexexem ha-shem
>    "may the Lord bless you (Hebrew)"
> yisge shlamxon
>    "may your peace be multiplied (Aramaic)"
> ERRWSQE
>    "be well (Greek)"
>

If, on the other hand, you are correct that this form is Hebrew, it
would strengthen considerably the notion that Hebrew was being spoken
at the time of Jesus, a position with which I agree. As Fitzmyer
pointed out already, the Gospels did not use a Greek translation but
reproduced a Semitic expression. The people obviously were not speaking
Greek in these situations.

**Maybe surprisingly, I wouldn't think that this would strengthen much
of anything. WSANNA is being used liturgically in the gospel text and
reflects a non-biblicizing Hebrew development (as I mentioned, I won't
speculate publically yet as to why) and one could even argue that the
people were speaking English (if we didn't know that English didn't
exist then.) As for Hebrew being used in the first century, that is a
given for specialists in Mishnaic Hebrew. Geiger's theory was long ago
disproved, over and over. James Barr pointed out in his Cambridge
1988(?) article that it is NT people who are out of touch with the
data.**

> Randall Buth
>
> Randall Buth, PhD
> www.biblicalulpan.org
> ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
> randallbuth at gmail.com

Always good to learn from you Randall. You are a joy.

**Thank you. I've enjoyed your response and especially the 4Q243
quote. That helps.**

Donald Vance
> ---

**Randall Buth**

--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
ybitan at mscc.huji.ac.il
randallbuth at gmail.com


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