Statistical Determination of Genre in Biblical Hebrew - Institute for ...

More documents

Recommendations

Info

656 Steven W. Boydensured the statistical validity of the study. 42 Also to guarantee statisticalvalidity a necessary condition for the inclusion of a text was that thefinite verb count not be too low. Thirty was the lower limit for the study.Consequently, short contiguous narratives were grouped together andpsalms were grouped by author (if indicated in the superscription), type,collections, and so forth. Another thing avoided was widely divergenttext sizes. Long texts, therefore, were subdivided into smaller units.How can Biblical Hebrew narratives be identified? In addition towhat was said in Section 3.4 above, Biblical Hebrew narratives—justas narratives in any other literature—tell a story, with a setting, thetime and place in which the events of the story unfold; character(s),the person or persons who do and say things in the story or have thingsdone or said to them; and the plot. Plot involves two movements. Thefirst is a movement from a situation in which the characters are inequilibrium with one another to one where the characters are no longerin equilibrium. They encounter a situation that places them in dangeror introduces an unrealized expectation. This last situation is unstableand demands resolution. This resolution is the second movement:the characters move to a new equilibrium. Linguistically, narrativesare characterized by lexical transparency, normal syntax, and literallanguage.Biblical Hebrew poetry also is not difficult to identify. First of all (asdiscussed in Section 3.1 above), in the oldest complete manuscript ofthe Hebrew Bible, the Leningrad Codex B19a, a few texts are laid out asverse: the Song of the Sea, the Balaam Oracles, the Song and Blessingof Moses, the Song of Deborah, the Song of David (2 Samuel 22), theFinal Words of David (2 Samuel 23) and Psalms 119 and 136. Second,poetry has a different poetics from narrative [see Sections 3.2 and 3.3above]. Third, poetry differs from narrative in its intended effects.The Biblical poet wants his readers to see, hear, smell, feel, and tastewhat he is experiencing. He is seeking to evoke his readers’ emotionsand experiences. He does this by creating vivid unforgettable images,which resonate with his readers.By applying the criteria discussed above the two populations wereidentified—295 narrative texts and 227 poetic texts.
Evidence for an Historical Reading of Genesis 1:1–2:3 6575.2 The Null HypothesisTo determine the inferential potential of the ratio of preterites to finiteverbs the null hypothesis H 0and the alternative H 1were put forth asfollows:H 0: All logistic regression classification models, in which the relativefrequency of preterites is the only independent variable, classify textsaccording to genre no better than random classification.This is tested against the alternative hypothesis:H 1: There is a classification model that classifies texts by genre betterthan random classification.5.3 The Random SampleIn order to ensure that texts from all periods and from all three partsof the Hebrew Bible (Torah, Prophets, and Writings) were includedin the analysis, a stratified random sample was generated. Also, thissample included extra texts to replace any primary texts rejected forviolating any of the conditions stated above.The breakdown of the narrative text in the sample is: Torah (15 out of87, 2 extra); Former Prophets (21 out of 138, 3 extra); Latter Prophets (2out of 11, 2 extra); and Writings (10 out of 59, 2 extra). The breakdownof the poetic texts in the sample is: Torah (3 out of 13, 2 extra); FormerProphets (3 out of 12, 2 extra); Latter Prophets (23 out of 104, 3 extra);and Writings (22 out of 98, 3 extra).5.4 Visualizing the DataAgain BibleWorks 5.0 was used to count the verbs for each text. Thedata is tabulated in Appendix B in Tables B1–B8.3-D bar graphs and scatter plots visually present the data. 3-D bargraphs display the relative frequency of finite verbs. For the 3-D bargraphs (Figures 4–5) the colors for the relative frequencies of preterites,imperfects, perfects and waw-perfects are green, red, yellow, and blue,respectively (going back into the page on the y-axes). The passages
Page 1 and 2: Chapter 9Statistical Determination
Page 3 and 4: Evidence for an Historical Reading
Page 6 and 7: 636 Steven W. Boydan historical rea
Page 8 and 9: 638 Steven W. Boydapproaches this t
Page 10 and 11: 640 Steven W. BoydThe coherence pri
Page 12 and 13: 642 Steven W. Boyd3. Problems of a
Page 14 and 15: 644 Steven W. Boydformat, but the t
Page 16 and 17: 646 Steven W. Boydis too subjective
Page 18 and 19: 648 Steven W. Boydthey are highly s
Page 20 and 21: 650 Steven W. Boydof events is impo
Page 22 and 23: 652 Steven W. BoydThe first questio
Page 24 and 25: 654 Steven W. Boyd0.8037Ratio of Pr
Page 28 and 29: 658 Steven W. Boyd1.00.90.80.70.60.
Page 30 and 31: 660 Steven W. Boyd1.00.90.80.70.60.
Page 32 and 33: 662 Steven W. BoydAs in Figures 6 a
Page 34 and 35: 664 Steven W. Boydmodel with all B
Page 36 and 37: 666 Steven W. Boydfor a one variabl
Page 38 and 39: 668 Steven W. BoydClassification wa
Page 40 and 41: 670 Steven W. Boydpoetry.With this
Page 42 and 43: 672 Steven W. Boydentire population
Page 44 and 45: 674 Steven W. Boyd1.00.9Probability
Page 46 and 47: 676 Steven W. Boydnot poetry, with
Page 48 and 49: 678 Steven W. BoydAbraham is noted
Page 51: Evidence for an Historical Reading
Page 54 and 55: 684 Steven W. Boydto Ashdod, they
Page 56 and 57: 686 Steven W. Boydthe account of th
Page 58 and 59: 688 Steven W. BoydBalaam tried to c
Page 60 and 61: 690 Steven W. BoydI have given Ar a
Page 62 and 63: 692 Steven W. Boydtruth claim of in
Page 64 and 65: 694 Steven W. Boyd(3) the Samson pe
Page 66 and 67: 696 Steven W. BoydImperfects/Finite
Page 68 and 69: 698 Steven W. BoydAlso, logistic re
Page 70 and 71: 700 Steven W. BoydTable B4. Finite
Page 72 and 73: 702 Steven W. BoydTable B8. Finite
Page 74 and 75: 704 Steven W. Boydcoefficients mode
Page 76 and 77:
706 Steven W. BoydaThis story does
Page 78 and 79:
708 Steven W. BoydTable D5. Chronol
Page 80 and 81:
710 Steven W. BoydTable D6. Functio
Page 82 and 83:
712 Steven W. BoydTable D8. Tempora
Page 84 and 85:
714 Steven W. Boydseventh day, and
Page 86 and 87:
716 Steven W. Boydas a standard for
Page 88 and 89:
718 Steven W. Boydpoetic sensibilit
Page 90 and 91:
720 Steven W. Boydby what precedes
Page 92 and 93:
722 Steven W. Boyd43. Pampel [2000,
Page 94 and 95:
724 Steven W. Boyd57. These were id
Page 96 and 97:
726 Steven W. Boydthe major disjunc
Page 98 and 99:
728 Steven W. Boydpp. 321-334, Zond
Page 100 and 101:
730 Steven W. BoydFokkelman, J. P.,
Page 102 and 103:
732 Steven W. BoydUniversity Press,
Page 104:
734 Steven W. BoydWeil, G. E., Bibl
show all

Statistical Determination of Genre in Biblical Hebrew - Institute for ...

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?