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  • From: "Michael Abernathy" <mabernathy AT isot.com>
  • To: "B-Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] exodus, dating of linguistics
  • Date: Sat, 29 May 2004 10:02:51 -0500

<Uri
Only in personal names is there internal linguistic evidence in the HB that
something new started with the Moses narratives (Alt). . . >
If I correctly understand what you are saying, you are implying a remarkable
degree of unity within the Hebrew language. Let me explain my thought. I
once saw a study English dialects within 20 miles of London in the same time
period. Not only were over a dozen dialects found, but some of those
dialects were barely recognizable as English. It is my understanding that
this kind of conformity is very rare and implies that either a single editor
or school of editors corrected the entire text of the Hebrew Bible to a
single standard, or that the earliest Scriptures were the standard used by
all later writers, or that the entirety of the Hebrew Bible was written in a
very short period and in a very small geographical region. None of these
explanations seems very satisfactory to me. I should think that the first
explanation would anticipate the kind of scribal errors I suggested. The
second is hard for me to swallow when I look at the Hebrew of the Dead Sea
Scrolls. The third seems unlikely because I find it difficult to believe
that the entire Hebrew race would be fooled into believing that a Bible they
never heard of was the same one used by their ancestors. Am I overlooking
something?
Sincerely,
Michael Abernathy
>From peterkirk AT qaya.org Sat May 29 10:44:01 2004
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To: Michael Abernathy <mabernathy AT isot.com>
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] exodus, dating of linguistics
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On 29/05/2004 08:02, Michael Abernathy wrote:

><Uri
> Only in personal names is there internal linguistic evidence in the HB that
> something new started with the Moses narratives (Alt). . . >
>If I correctly understand what you are saying, you are implying a remarkable
>degree of unity within the Hebrew language. Let me explain my thought. I
>once saw a study English dialects within 20 miles of London in the same time
>period. Not only were over a dozen dialects found, but some of those
>dialects were barely recognizable as English. It is my understanding that
>this kind of conformity is very rare and implies that either a single editor
>or school of editors corrected the entire text of the Hebrew Bible to a
>single standard, or that the earliest Scriptures were the standard used by
>all later writers, or that the entirety of the Hebrew Bible was written in a
>very short period and in a very small geographical region. None of these
>explanations seems very satisfactory to me. I should think that the first
>explanation would anticipate the kind of scribal errors I suggested. The
>second is hard for me to swallow when I look at the Hebrew of the Dead Sea
>Scrolls. The third seems unlikely because I find it difficult to believe
>that the entire Hebrew race would be fooled into believing that a Bible they
>never heard of was the same one used by their ancestors. Am I overlooking
>something?
>Sincerely,
>Michael Abernathy
>
>
>
One thing you are overlooking, Michael, is the distinction between
spoken and written language. If you look at *written* texts produced
within 20 miles of London, or indeed anywhere in England, you will find
in the great majority of them a considerable uniformity, and a gradual
change over time. That is because all educated writers usually used a
rather standardised form of the language, with only occasional use of
dialect words and forms. We see the same picture in the Hebrew Bible:
the unformity of a standardised written language, with occasional
dialect variation and some gradual long-term changes.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/





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