Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Ancient Near Eastern Mutual Comprehensibility
Here’s an article I want to read. Someone please edit it so it can be published!
Hello All.
I’ve been asked to consider an unsolicited manuscript for possible publication in the magazine I work for now. It is not written by a linguist, and I have some questions. I was wondering if anyone out there knows, or knows of someone who specializes in, ancient near eastern languages who could clear some things up for me.The paper is on the lack of mentioned interpreters in the Bible, and how the Egyptian, Aramaic, Hebrew, Philistine etc. peoples managed to communicate with each other (the author is assuming all recorded events i.e. Moses’ exchange with his brother Aaron, or Abraham’s conversations with Pharaoh, or the Sanhedrin’s and Pilate’s dialogue, actually happened, of course.)
Thanks,
Katy
Kathleen E. Miller
Assistant Editor
Bible Review & Biblical Archaeology Review
Biblical Archaeology Society
4710 41st St., NW
Washington, DC 20016
202-364-3300 * 230
202-364-2636 (fax)
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http://www.bib-arch.org
Gerald Cohen adds that Miller is “a former (and very helpful) assistant to NY Times columnist William Safire,” and notes, “Btw, there’s at least one mention of an interpreter (Genesis XLII: 23: “And they knew not that Joseph understood them, for he spoke unto them by an interpreter.”