Meaning in Torah (7/30/26)

I was captured by the introduction to this article which focuses on reading the Torah as the writer intended to write it. I have recently posted on guides to interpreting meaning of text--what is more persuasive the author's meaning or what the audience (contemporary or millenia later) might interpret the words to mean. See  James Kugel on the Shema; JAT on Originalism and Textualism (Jack Townsend Blog 7/24/26), here.

One of the examples the author uses to draw the naïve (like me) into the discussion is:

When Beethoven writes a chromatic accidental—adding a note, such as a C♯, to a key that does not include a C♯—it is not enough to point that out analytically. We need to be on the alert to discover the reason we are hearing that note—how it serves to modulate or add tension to the melodic line.

Caveat for those tempted to read the linked discussion, it delves into topics that perhaps a linguist will understand and enjoy. For example, under the heading Joseph and the Shechemite Speak (In)formally, the author says: 

When Jacob sends his son Joseph to check on the flocks that Joseph’s brothers are tending at Shechem, a man finds him along the way. The “man” (who is the focus of most of the traditional commentary on this verse)^[2] uses an imperfect verb form to ask Joseph מַה תְּבַקֵּשׁ (mah tevakesh)?

^{בראשׁית לז:טו}וַיִּמְצָאֵהוּ אִישׁ וְהִנֵּה תֹעֶה בַּשָּׂדֶה וַיִּשְׁאָלֵהוּ הָאִישׁ לֵאמֹר מַה תְּבַקֵּשׁ.

 ^{Gen 37:15} A man came upon him wandering in the fields. The man asked him, “What are you looking for (tevakesh)?”

Joseph replies with a participle of the same verb: אָנֹכִי מְבַקֵּשׁ (anokhi mevakesh). The NJPS translation conceals a difference in the two Hebrew verb forms by translating both as “looking for.”

^{בראשׁית לז:טז}וַיֹּאמֶר אֶת אַחַי אָנֹכִי מְבַקֵּשׁ הַגִּידָה נָּא לִי אֵיפֹה הֵם רֹעִים.

 ^37:16 He answered, “I am looking for (mevakesh) my brothers. Could you tell me where they are pasturing?”^[3]

Galia Hatav (University of Florida), a scholar of linguistics who has devoted some thought to why the verb forms differ, explains:

It seems to me that since, unlike Joseph, the man is not sure whether Joseph is looking for something or just having a walk, he does not ask him what he is looking for but IF he might be looking for something. In other words, the man wanted to express some modality, which necessitated the use of the modal form [the imperfect].^[4]

She calls this a “very intriguing” combination of tenses and translates the two phrases, respectively, as, “what would you be seeking?” and “I am seeking my brothers” (emphasis added). It seems more likely to me, however—reading like a writer—that this difference between verbal forms is better explained as a device used by the writer to indicate that the two characters had different manners of speech. That is indeed something that writers do, as is attested in Mark Twain’s explanatory note to Huckleberry Finn:

In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary “Pike County” dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.

I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding.^[5]

In the Joseph story, the issue does not seem to be one of different dialects, though we are handicapped by not knowing nearly as much as we would like about how biblical characters are “supposed” to sound. The Hebrew of the northern kingdom of Israel, where we have a certain amount of biblical and inscriptional evidence, is the exception that proves the rule.^[6] Nonetheless, I am convinced that the writer of this story was not implying that “the man” was not sure whether Joseph was looking for something. He was painting another detail into the portrait of these two: perhaps the man’s formality or politeness contrasted with Joseph’s 17-year-old casualness?^[7]

I have a glimmering of understanding of this but do not claim to be an expert understander (to sort of use the word technique that George W. Bush used).

https://www.thetorah.com/article/reading-the-bible-like-a-writer