CHALOT vs. HALOT

Mathew Voth

Hey,

I was just wondering if anyone could tell/show me the main difference(s) between the concise version of the Hebrew Aramaic Lexicon, and the unabridged version?

I am considering moving up to HALOT, but want to be sure that it is worth the extra cost.

Thanks in advance, and Shalom in your Home!

Paul N

In a nut shell:

"...the evidence offered by parallel passages, cognate languages, and the consequent discussions of scholars..." has been largely left out of the CHALOT

 

"Two contrary classroom purposes have impelled this work, one humble, practical, and rather less than scholarly, the other idealistic and more scientific. The first, already alluded to, is to meet the needs of the beginning student, uncertain of the way, anxious to “get the assignment done,” whose overriding question is simply, “What does this word, this verse, this passage mean?” For such a student a working tool has, I trust, been provided that offers some of the riches of present-day scholarship in modest and usable compass. But the other purpose is to lead the student to ask the prior question, “How and to what extent can we know what this word or verse or passage means?” Too rarely is the student led to ask who compiles a dictionary, and what evidence the compiler has used in drawing his conclusions. This is the central problem in defining words in a language or dialect no longer spoken; and unfortunately, in the interests of saving space, the steps by which the German work has arrived at its conclusions have in the present work been largely suppressed: namely, the evidence offered by parallel passages, cognate languages, and the consequent discussions of scholars. But it is my hope that, even truncated as the present work is, it still offers the student enough significant variations from the Revised Standard Version or from whatever other modern translation might be at hand, to prompt the student to raise the tolerance for uncertainty, and to begin to “test everything, holding fast to what is good.” And for this purpose the German work, with all its scholarly apparatus, stands ready, urging the student to master its German and to invest in its resources."

I think Holladay gives a fair reasoning, quoted above, as to why he did what he did. (from the second to the last paragraph of the introduction of the Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament.)