Thanks, Cheryl, for reminding me of the sustaining grace of God in our lives.
All posts by Phillip Marshall
Hebrew & Greek Humor for the Holidays
One of our MABL (Master of Arts in Biblical Languages) students is showing a set of skills I had heretofore not seen in full blossom–he’s very nearly a stand-up comedian! Today he passed along some language jokes that would make any elementary Greek and Hebrew professor very proud, and thankfully, he has permitted me to post them here. Enjoy! And if you don’t smile, then please take it as definitive proof that you *need* to come study Greek and Hebrew here at HBU! Merry Christmas!
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(1) Q: What kind of poker do Hebrew cowboys play?
A: Texas Cholem.
(2) Q: Where did extremely sick adjective go?
A: The adjectival intensive care unit. (He himself went, by the way.)
(3) Q: What Hebrew vowel is so rare it only occurs in texts once every 75 years?
A: Halley’s Qamets.
(4) Q: What kind of airplane do Greek pronouns fly in?
A: The Pronominal Concorde, of course.
(5) Q: Which Hebrew vowel has also starred in several extremely violent action movies?
A: Steven Segol.
(6) Q: What’s the best app for studying Greek grammar?
A: Angry Verbs.
(7) Q: Why do so many young Hebrew farmers move to the city after their first crop?
A: How can you keep them on the farm once they’ve seen פְּרִי?
(8) Q: How do you know you’ve been studying Greek too hard?
A: At Christmas you see “‘Tis the season” and start trying to parse the “τις”.
(9) Q: How are many aspiring comedy careers like tsere, qamets, and chireq?
A: They’re not historically long.
Language Log » François Mitterrand crash blossom
From Language Log: Here’s an example of why it’s important to understand the basics of syntax, structural ambiguity, and proper punctuation. The first line of the New York Times piece has seemingly added to Mitterrand’s sins! Interesting commentary at the Language Log link’s combox. –psm
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“François Mitterrand crash blossom”
Under the heading “the benefits of paired em dashes, part 57″, Mark Swofford sent in the following screen shot from yesterday’s New York Times:
The main part of the caption under the most prominent photo in the screen shot reads:
“Mazarine Pingeot, the daughter of François Mitterrand, the former French president, and his longtime mistress, has published a diary.”
As Mark says, “It took me several readings before that stopped sounding incestuous.”
December 2, 2012 @ 11:09 pm · Filed by Victor Mair under Crash blossoms, Punctuation
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HBU Hosts Dr. Emanuel Tov Lecture on Dead Sea Scrolls
The Houston Baptist University School of Christian Thought/Dept of Theology is pleased to invite any and all to a FREE public lecture tonight (Monday, 7pm) featuring Dr. Emanuel Tov. Dr. Tov is recognized as the world’s leading expert on the textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible (his textbook on this topic is considered the gold standard among those in the field) and on the Dead Sea Scrolls. He served as the Editor-in-Chief of the project called “Discoveries in the Judean Desert,” which was responsible for publishing the Dead Sea Scrolls materials for the scholarly world. As Director of the MA in Biblical Languages, let me say that I am nothing short of thrilled that our students living in Houston have the opportunity to meet with and hear such first-rate scholars in fields like these. We are indeed very honored to be hosting Dr. Tov at HBU this evening. See details of the meeting below:
LECTURER: Emanuel Tov, J. L. Magnes Professor Emeritus of Bible Studies at Hebrew University in Jerusalem
LECTURE TOPIC: “The Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls”
DATE: October 22, 2012
TIME: 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.
LOCATION: Belin Chapel on the campus of Houston Baptist University (in the Morris Cultural Arts center)
Here’s a piece that I just posted on our School of Christian Thought website at Houston Baptist University. I explore briefly what linguistics is, and why it is beneficial to study linguistics.
Invitation to Hebrew Lecture by Josh Westbury at HBU
This is an invitation to those in the Houston area who love Biblical Hebrew and the Hebrew Bible: On Friday, Sept 21, at 11am at Houston Baptist University, Dr. Marshall will have as a guest lecturer in the Hebrew Reading course Josh Westbury, Hebrew Language Specialist from Logos Bible Software. He will be talking about some of the discourse features of Biblical Hebrew from Genesis 37 and 39, as well as giving us a peek at the new Lexham Discourse Hebrew Bible database and how it can is useful for just this sort of analysis of the text.
If you are a former HBU language student, or a present/former student of Biblical Hebrew from any school or church/synagogue, we would love for you to come and hear what Josh and HBU is up to. (By the way, Josh is a graduate of HBU, and one of his majors was biblical languages!). Here’s the stuff you need to know:
Who? Josh Westbury (see bio below, which is from the Logos Bible Software website)
Where? Atwood 2 building, in room 215, on the campus of Houston Baptist University
When? Friday, Sept 21, 2012, at 11am (class runs from 11:00-11:50am)
Why? Because we love Biblical Hebrew, we love linguistics, and we love talking about both of them together! Oh, and we love you, too, which is why you’re invited to come. Please let me know if you are coming (and you’re not one of my Hebrew students)–you can just reply to the post here if you’d like.
A Moving Story of My Mother-in-Law’s Mom–A Life Well-Lived
I absolutely love my mother-in-law, Leona. I wish I had know her mother, too. In honor of Leona’s birthday today, my wife Cheryl posted some thoughts about the history of these two dear women. I never re-post whole blog entries, but I think this one is just too good not to share in toto. Thanks for writing this so well, Cheryl–you too are a terrific example of a woman walking wisely. –Phillip
Fun With Linguistics: Productivity
In linguistics we have a term for how you can use patterns to create new words: productivity. For example, the -ly suffix can be added to many adjectives to create new adverbs: “nice” becomes “nicely” while “able” becomes “ably.” That’s a productive pattern. What’s amazing is that children who are learning to speak a language natively start using such productive patterns intuitively, without ever being told explicitly how to do it. And they are correct most of the time. But when they misapply a productive pattern, it’s often funny. Tonight, I heard another funny. This evening Andrew and Kathryn (our 7 year old twins) decided they would sleep under a make-shift tent created by draping bed sheets over chairs and stools. As I was helping them lay down their make-shift beds, Andrew determined that he would use a huge beach towel as his “blanket.” Kathryn objected, misapplying a productive word-formation pattern:
“But . . . that’s not . . . blanketable.”
I’m still smiling. 🙂
New Blog by Cheryl Marshall
My gracious and lovely wife has picked up her proverbial pen to begin blogging. In the last two days she is already more prolific than I am on actual blog posts for 2012! Her blog, Women Walking Wisely, provides her ruminations and biblically-informed thoughts on a variety of things that average, everyday Christian wives, mothers, daughters, and women may find interesting and helpful. I know that I have benefited over the years from her wise words and godly counsel–I hope that you will, too. You can find her blog at Women Walking Wisely. Happy New Year, and congratulations, Cheryl Marshall!
Summer Biblical Hebrew at Southwestern Seminary in Houston
ANNOUNCEMENT: I’m teaching Turbo Hebrew at Southwestern Seminary-Houston starting Monday, May 8 9. We will cover a full year of Biblical Hebrew in 10 wks, and the course meets Mondays/Thursdays from 8am to noon each time. In order for the course to make we need enough people committed by the end of the day tomorrow–Tuesday, May 3. Please email me (psmarshall AT gmail DOT com) if you need details and I’ll get you set up.
Also, you could contact the following about enrolling:
Hudson Hanks (hhanks@swbts.edu)
Director of Business & Student Services
713.634.0011 ext. 222
BIBLICAL LANGUAGES 