Language about salvation: an analysis of part of the vocabulary of the Old Testament

It may seem odd that, after many centuries of translation and exegesis, the meaning of a common Old Testament Hebrew word like HOSIA can still be taken as the subject of a doctoral dissertation. There are several answers to this charge. First, there have, broadly speaking, been only two approaches to the problem of the meaning of HOSIA, the one based on simple translation (e.g. 'HOSIA means "save "), and the other on comparative philology (e.g. 'the root of HOSIA means "spaciousness". Cf. Arabic wasia "be spacious "'). Even without analysing the obvious inadequacy of these two methods, it is clear that there is still room for a systematic definition of the meaning of HOSIA from within the Hebrew language. How is it distinguished, for example, from HISSIL which also 'means "save", and from HIRHIB whose root also 'means "spaciousness "? Monolingual definition, in terms of meaning-relations contracted within the language, and semantic components identifiable in lexical groups, is, to the best of my knowledge, unknown in the field of Old Testament Hebrew lexicography.This leads to a second, more general answer. The gap between the semantics of Biblical language and modern linguistic theory has still to be bridged. My interests in this direction began in 1961 at New College, Edinburgh, under the stimulus of Professor James Barr whose famous book on the subject was published in that year, and were further encouraged by Professor Chaim Rabin in Jerusalem, whose course in semantica mictra'it at the Hebrew University in 1962, in a way marked the beginning of a new era for the semantics of the Hebrew language. More recently, my participation in the activities of the Linguistic Section of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne Philosophical Society, and some valuable assistance from Professor John Lyons in the University of Edinburgh, have made me aware of the immense contribution still to be made by general linguistics to Old Testament lexicography and interpretation.In this short essay I have tried to work out a general semantic theory applicable to a religious text like the Old Testament. In the field of Biblical research, semanticists - and this includes philologists, lexicographers, exegetes and theologians - have a distinct advantage over their colleagues in other branches of linguistic science in having a closed literary corpus to work with. Our first step is to define this corpus and the context or contexts in which it has meaning (Chapter I). There are varieties of language within the corpus and distinctions must be drawn in terms of style or literary form (Chapter II). A third chapter presents some of the more important historical factors operating in the associative field to which HOSIA , HISSIL, etc. belong; while the next chapter is a synchronic analysis of the meaning of these terms as they are used in a selected variety of Old Testament Hebrew, namely language addressed to God. The results of this analysis can then be correlated, compared with the historical data, and set forth as dictionary definitions (Chapter V). A final chapter attempts to draw up a modest blue -print for semantic studies of Old Testament terms, based on the experience of handling the lexical material involved in the foregoing chapters.This outline suggests a third answer to the charge that there can hardly be anything left to say on the meaning of HOSIA: a problem like this cannot properly be studied in isolation. Questions about the context of the Old Testament, the nature of religious language, and the relation between "word -studies" and "concept- studies ", on which there is still a great deal to be said, arise at every stage. Which words belong to language about salvation and which do not? What is the relation between "the meaning of HOSIA and "the meaning of salvation"? How is it possible to move from semantic analysis to Biblical Theology? What theological norms are there in cases of diversity of meaning? In short, there are theological and religious issues in this kind of study which point beyond the relatively circumscribed context of linguistic description

Airport Emergency Post-Event Recovery Practices

TRB’s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Synthesis 60: Airport Emergency Post-Event Recovery Practices explores approaches to improving the overall resiliency of airports through planning for the recovery phase of emergency response

Effects of X-Linkage and Sex-Biased Gene Expression on the Rate of Adaptive Protein Evolution in Drosophila

Patterns of polymorphism and divergence in Drosophila protein-coding genes suggest that a considerable fraction of amino acid differences between species can be attributed to positive selection and that genes with sex-biased expression, that is, those expressed predominantly in one sex, have especially high rates of adaptive evolution. Previous studies, however, have been restricted to autosomal sex-biased genes and, thus, do not provide a complete picture of the evolutionary forces acting on sex-biased genes across the genome. To determine the effects of X-linkage on sex-biased gene evolution, we surveyed DNA sequence polymorphism and divergence in 45 X-linked genes, including 17 with male-biased expression, 13 with female-biased expression, and 15 with equal expression in the 2 sexes. Using both single- and multilocus tests for selection, we found evidence for adaptive evolution in both groups of sex-biased genes. The signal of adaptive evolution was particularly strong for X-linked male-biased genes. A comparison with data from 91 autosomal genes revealed a ‘‘fast-X’’ effect, in which the rate of adaptive evolution was greater for X-linked than for autosomal genes. This effect was strongest for male-biased genes but could be seen in the other groups as well. A genome-wide analysis of coding sequence divergence that accounted for sex-biased expression also uncovered a fast-X effect for male-biased and unbiased genes, suggesting that recessive beneficial mutations play an important role in adaptation.Organismic and Evolutionary Biolog

The Old Testament and Its Readers

The paper begins with personal memories of Porteous from the author and another New College alumnus. It then goes on to explore the notion of the meaning of Old Testament texts and the role of the reader (particularly the ‘ordinary reader’) in the process of understanding them. This takes in readings from the perspectives of feminism, liberation theology and postcolonialism; reception history and the ‘afterlife’ of texts; and a discussion of the criteria by which an interpretation of a text may be considered ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’, and indeed if this is possible at all. A bibliography on this topic is appended

Tabletop and Full-Scale Emergency Exercises for General Aviation, Non-Hub, and Small Hub Airports

ACRP Synthesis 72: Tabletop and Full-Scale Emergency Exercises for General Aviation, Non-Hub, and Small Hub Airports provides small airports with the tools and practices needed to practice emergency response. The report provides sample exercise tools and plans, a checklist of effective practices for tabletop and full-scale emergency exercises, and a road map for developing an effective exercise program

Emergency Communications Planning for Airports

TRB\u27s Airport Cooperative Research Program (ACRP) Synthesis 73: Emergency Communications Planning for Airports explores emergency communications planning and is specifically designed for use by airport senior management, public information officers, and first responders and emergency managers. The report includes sample communication plan tables of contents, field operations guides, and a checklist of effective communications plans

Nuclear safety policy working group recommendations on nuclear propulsion safety for the space exploration initiative

An interagency Nuclear Safety Working Group (NSPWG) was chartered to recommend nuclear safety policy, requirements, and guidelines for the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) nuclear propulsion program. These recommendations, which are contained in this report, should facilitate the implementation of mission planning and conceptual design studies. The NSPWG has recommended a top-level policy to provide the guiding principles for the development and implementation of the SEI nuclear propulsion safety program. In addition, the NSPWG has reviewed safety issues for nuclear propulsion and recommended top-level safety requirements and guidelines to address these issues. These recommendations should be useful for the development of the program's top-level requirements for safety functions (referred to as Safety Functional Requirements). The safety requirements and guidelines address the following topics: reactor start-up, inadvertent criticality, radiological release and exposure, disposal, entry, safeguards, risk/reliability, operational safety, ground testing, and other considerations

DeWitt Wallace Library Annual Report 2015-2016

Summary of library and media services activities for 2015-201

Improving an Active-Optical Reflectance Sensor Algorithm Using Soil and Weather Information

Active-optical reflectance sensors (AORS) use light reflectance characteristics from a crop canopy as an indicator of the plant’s N health. However, studies have shown AORS algorithms used in conjunction with measured reflectance characteristics for corn (Zea maysL.) N fertilizer rate recommendations are not consistently accurate. Our objective was to determine if soil and weather information could be utilized with an AORS algorithm developed at the University of Missouri (ALGMU) to improve in-season (∼V9 corn development stage) N fertilizer recommendations. Nitrogen response trials were conducted across eight states over three growing seasons, totaling 49 sites with soils ranging in productivity. Nitrogen fertilizer rates according to the ALGMU were compared to economic optimal nitrogen rate (EONR). Without soil and weather information included, the root mean square error (RMSE) of the difference between ALGMU and EONR (MUDIFF) was 81 and 74 kg N ha–1 for treatments receiving 0 and 45 kg N ha–1 applied at planting, respectively. When ALGMU was adjusted using weather (seasonal precipitation and distribution prior to sidedress) and soil clay content, the RMSE was reduced by 24 to 26 kg N ha–1. Without adjustment, 20 and 29% of sites were within 34 kg N ha–1 of EONR with 0 and 45 kg N ha–1 at planting, respectively. But with adjustment for soil and weather data, 45 and 51% of sites were within 34 kg N ha–1 of EONR. These results show that weather and soil information could be used to improve ALGMU N recommendation performance