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# Some Notes on Lexicographic Criticism and Biblical Hebrew Studies. Revisiting David J. A. Clines's Method

**Authors:** Clara Carbonell Ortiz · **Year:** 2024 · **Venue:** Sefarad 84(2), e1234 **Link:** [doi.org/10.3989/sefarad.024.1234](https://doi.org/10.3989/sefarad.024.1234) · **Licence:** [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

[**0** citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=cites:W4409945126) openalex · 2026-10-18[Sefarad](https://openalex.org/S4505127)[licence](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

- [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.3989/sefarad.024.1234)
- [PDF](https://sefarad.revistas.csic.es/index.php/sefarad/article/download/1234/1429)
- [DOI 10.3989/sefarad.024.1234](https://doi.org/10.3989/sefarad.024.1234)
- [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W4409945126)

**Authors (1)**

1. [Clara Carbonell Ortiz](https://openalex.org/A5074441897) [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9173-846X) · h 1 · 1 citations · 15 works

Citations and author metrics from openalex (2026-10-18); authors with the same name are not always told apart.

## What it is about

The full text is not in the library; this card rests on the abstract (from OpenAlex), and the ideas are provisional. The author reviews a series of papers in which D. J. A. Clines proposed "comparative (classical) Hebrew lexicography", the comparison of how dictionaries treat a word, and argues that his method suffers from chronological and linguistic biases that leave its findings inconclusive. She proposes instead a "lexicographic criticism" that reads each dictionary in its own time and language setting. Two case studies: the place of Aramaic in medieval dictionaries of Biblical Hebrew, and where the reading of חֵיל as "outer wall" (rampart) comes from.

## Ideas

- I1. Every sense in the Torah dictionary should carry its source and date (BDB 1906, OSHB gloss, our own reading), so a sense inherited from an older dictionary can be traced and questioned rather than taken as fact; this is lexicographic criticism done in data.
- I2. When two sources disagree on a gloss, keep both with their sources instead of merging them, and count how often BDB's gloss and OSHB's differ over the Torah lemmas.

## For Mova

Both ideas go to `macula dict` (the Torah dictionary's columns) and to [The lexicon](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/docs/languages/hbo/10-lexicon/), where the dictionary's method is described. Neither needs the full text, but the case of חֵיל is outside the Torah.

## Cite

The paper itself, not this card. BibTeX from the library's record of the work. [DOI 10.3989/sefarad.024.1234](https://doi.org/10.3989/sefarad.024.1234)

```
@inproceedings{ortiz2024some,
  title = {{Some Notes on Lexicographic Criticism and Biblical Hebrew Studies. Revisiting David J. A. Clines's Method}},
  author = {Ortiz, Clara Carbonell},
  booktitle = {Sefarad},
  year = {2024},
  doi = {10.3989/sefarad.024.1234},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3989/sefarad.024.1234}
}
```

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