Thank you for appreciating that I have a valid argument.
Tobin wrote:Language is not as static as you pretend and there is precedent for this type of treatment of cognate words as found in Isaiah 2:16. I would cite examples of a similar of treatment as this is found within the Old Testament in Leviticus 26:1, Numbers 33:52, Proverbs 25:11, and Ezekiel 8:12. I don't buy that due the uniqueness of this particular cognate word that you are correct.
Well, why do you buy that these are cognate in the first place? Do you even know the evidence?
What cognate word anyway? Do you mean "maskith" (מַשְׂכִּית)? The thing is, you
could be right, and nowhere have I said or implied that language is static. But the fact that language is dynamic--a truism that shouldn't need stating--doesn't mean that you can make anything mean what you want it to mean. You have to look at evidence to sift the likely from the unlikely.
The word "maskith," in fact, is only suggested by some to have the same root (s-k-y) as sekhiyyot (s-k-y). Even if it came from that, that does not mean at all that they have an identical meaning, though, and some identical roots have meaning that are totally unrelated and even completely contradictory (cf. English cleave, which means both to join together and to separate; the reason is that two different verbs eventually merged because of phonological similarities. There are many examples in Hebrew, Arabic, and other Semitic languages and indeed all languages that have productive, root-based morphologies, so it doesn't necessarily settle anything).
Indeed, perhaps Aquila and Symmachus did what you are doing and used "maskith" in order to translate "sekhiyyoth." But does that mean that they were right in doing so? How would you know? Appealing to the dynamism of language doesn't even address the question. Other than speculation, the evidence we have that maskith and sekhiyyoth are cognates is...none. Semantics doesn't help, because that's the problem we're dealing with in the first place, and phonology is problematic because the yod in maskith could be a waw, as you are no doubt aware that Hebrew yod is most frequently a reflex of the consonant waw. So Symmachus and Aquila, not knowing the meaning of sekhiyyoth, could have picked the wrong root as a guide, since "maskith" could just as easily come from the root s-k-w (a root
which does have a reflex meaning "appearance," but it too is a hapax, and could just as easily mean "cloud," "rooster," or "mind"); could be a causative participle, in fact, with a tacked on feminine -t (who know's why? Well, it's nuance! That's why): "that which causes images in the mind?" Or it could even be a causative participle from a root s-k-t. This is, however, not evidence but speculation.
But then, maybe sekhiyyot also comes from that root, right? Maybe sekhiyyot means roosters! Well, not likely actually. If it were a final waw, the plural would likely be *sekhot; the yod with the dagesh suggests an original s-k-y, whereas maskith could be either one or even s-k-t. So it is not a sure guide.
So how do you decide this question?
The evidence:
1. The poetic structure clearly demands the meaning of "ships," not "roosters," not pretty pictures. We should take the poetic structure seriously as a starting point, just as if we were dealing with English poetry using rhymed couplets, we should assume that the structure was consistent in the questionable instance if it is elsewhere, unless we have a reason not to. Do you have a good reason for discounting the poetic structure? If not, then we can ask: Is there any evidence to support a reading of "ships" for sekhiyyot?
There is:
2. What do you know, the earliest translation (Septuagint) has the meaning "ships." This is a translation that we know even preserves phonological features that had dropped away by the time of the Masoretic text was committed to writing (hence Gaza for Masoretic 'Aza). We need really good reasons to discount this evidence. Do you have any for this particular instance in Isaiah 2:16?
3. Bonus: unproblematic Afro-asiatic cognates confirm the meaning "ships" (see Pike's article).
What are the reasons to question that reading, though?
4. Three Greek sources 800 years later, one of which looks to be borrowing from the other (Theodotion from Symmachus), and so we really only have two Greek sources, Symmachus and Aquila, neither of whom are reliable translators as we know from the rest of the fragments of their work. We need a good reason to give them any weight, and a really good reason to give them more weight than the Septuagint. What are those reasons, Tobin?
5. One speculative etymological connection to "maskith," whose underlying root is not even clear. Since we don't even know whether this is the same root, there is really no reason to use this evidence.
Tobin wrote:There is plenty of evidence, due to the number of different renderings in Greek and elsewhere that the issue isn't that simple. The translation is deserving of a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding than the translators simply picked the wrong word.
Well, first, the translators didn't simply pick the wrong word; they just didn't understand it, and certainly Aquila didn't understand or even care about larger textual units (like poetic structure) beyond a single word, so in his case it is that simple. Symmachus is more complicated, but not very useful. Jerome derives from them, so he's irrelevant, except for understanding the KJV's source. The only relevant evidence for determining the earliest reading and thus the one we would expect to see in a text that claims to be from the 6th century BC comes from the Septuagint and the Masoretic text. And both of those agree that it's ships. That's as nuanced as the evidence allows us to be. You can of course be as nuanced as you like--maybe it means roosters after all--but your nuanced argument will only be as persuasive as the evidence you can muster to support it. What is your evidence that it can mean "pleasant pictures" beside 4) and 5) above?
Perhaps you think that 4) and 5) constitute "plenty of evidence," but if so the evidence in 1), 2), and 3) is obviously more plentiful, being three points of data rather than two. It also has the benefit of not being dubious and speculative, certainly not to the degree that 5) is, and it doesn't suffer from the problem of chronology, as 4) does, nor does it face the issue of interference from the translator's motivating principles, as 4) does.
So, how is it more sophisticated and nuanced to opt for 4) and 5) at the expense of 1), 2), and 3)? It certainly is more confusing to do so, but confusing and sophisticated are not synonyms, just as nuanced and unclear are not (despite the usage of many liberal Mormons). I see how one could appeal to faith for doing so, and I would say that I can accept that as valid within in its self-defined bounds, but if we remove faith from the equation, appealing to the painfully obvious truism that "language is not static" is an excuse both to ignore the weight of evidence and to ignore the hard work of sifting through it; it is not a sophisticated, nuanced argument. It is not any argument at all.
"As to any slivers of light or any particles of darkness of the past, we forget about them."
—B. Redd McConkie