Below is the response I received from UriYosef in regards to my blog post on the Aramaic Targumim and the meaning of the word בר in Aramaic. The below response tells me several things about where he is going with his line of reasoning.
1. That he is unwilling to take a serious look at the Aramaic Language as we have it. He is only willing to take a narrowed scope of the language and claim "This is it!" and no other views in the Aramaic are valid regardless of the implications contrary to his claims.
2. While I admit that he did not use "midrashic" in association with the Targumim in his article, this was claimed about Uri by the person conveying this blog to Uri. That is where I received the idea that Uri said that the Targumim conveyed midrashic interpretations.
3. That Uri does not want to discuss the natural progression of language as it is associated with word meaning over time. This is in spite of the fact that Uri, fluent in Modern Hebrew, assumes that this natural progression of the Hebrew language maintained the original meaning of Ancient Hebrew words and that he can read the Hebrew Bible based on this assumption. Double Standards are amazing!
4. The unmade claim on Uri's part is that only biblical Aramaic gets the term בר correct in its intent in meaning and others need not apply. The problem is that the textual vocabulary of the Aramaic portions of the hebrew bible are extremely limited and only literary. Uri builds a case from lack of contrary evidence to deduce that "Since the Bible doesnt use בר in the way of meaning "a son" then it must not mean that at all. This is a Fallacy of Silence and of Narrowing the field.
5. He did not address anything I said about the term בר in its usage in the Aramaic Language which shows contrary usage. Uri's only response was to return to his narrow playing field of limited Aramaic vocabulary in the Hebrew bible.
6. The best thing for Uri to do is save his ridicule for when honesty can come before pride. Uri must assume I spent "a lot" of time on my blog post.
Here is my message to Uri:
I did that post in 20 Minutes at 2:30AM. I got the exact response I expected from you! I dispelled the idea that בר is not a stand alone noun meaning "a son" by looking at the Aramaic language, for which you had no answer. I called out your narrowing of the field and argument from silence! Real, earnest, scholarship has to take into account all evidence for and against an argument. I did this in 20 minutes at 2:30AM having to work the next day at 6:00AM. Imagine what a serious blog post would look like with time and devotion put into it.
You cited in your article all of these instances of the usage of בר in the text but can you show me a place in the Hebrew bible where your claimed root "בְּרָא" is used as simply "a son" in the Aramaic portions of the Hebrew bible? You neglected to cite that in your article and I am curious. Also, did it ever occur to you, Uri, that this term,בְּרָא , can be and usually is, the definite form of the word? In Aramaic the definite form takes an א suffix to denote the definite. Take Ezekiel 18:19 and look at the Targum Yonatan and its usage.
Ezekiel 18:19 (Targum Yonatan)
וַאֲמַרתֻון ותימרון מָדֵין לָא לָקֵי בְרָא בְחוֹבֵי אַבָא וֻברָא דִין דִקשוֹט וְזָכֻו עֲבַד יָת כָל קְיָמַי נְטַר וַעֲבַד יָתְהוֹן מֵיחָא יֵיחֵי׃
Both of these are used for corresponding nouns in the Hebrew. Both words have the definite article in the Hebrew text of Ezekiel 18:19 being הַבֵּן.
At this stage, I do not see even a remote response to these claims perhaps Uri would like to elaborate on some other issues I am taking with him.
At this stage of his article I see two issues with what he wrote:
1. I never referred to the Targum as Midrashic in my article. At the bottom of Page 8 I have the following:
The Targum Yonatan, an ancient interpretive translation into the Aramaic vernacular of the
Hebrew Bible, has קָ בִּ ילוּ אוּלְפָנָא (qaBIlu ulfaNA), accept the Law.
2. The Aramaic of the Targumim came long after the Hebrew Bible was written, so it is a rather weak argument to support his claim by comparing the older Aramaic used in the Hebrew Bible with the more "modern" Aramaic employed in the Targumim.
If this is his idea of scholarship, then he is deluding himself. We'll see what other sort of misrepresentations he uses when he finishes it.
Uri
