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  • From: James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>
  • To: dwashbur AT nyx.net
  • Cc: Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] How Long was Hebrew a Living Language?
  • Date: Mon, 31 Aug 2009 07:42:58 +0100

Yeah,

I think you're right David. There seems to have been quite a lot of this kind of thing. Too many conclusions from so little evidence. We basically have a library of manuscripts kept in a safe location. It could well have been just one very zealous individual hoping to keep the scrolls safe from some kind of disaster.

I think some have even suggested that this may have been an early Christian fleeing from a besieged Jerusalem that put the scrolls there in a safe place. Some of the texts even seem to have Christian ideas in them. Like the wicked priest and the righteous teacher. I know there is a lot of debate over who the wicked priest is and who the righteous teacher is but it has to be admitted that there are parallels to be found with Christian teachings.

James Christian


Quoting dwashbur AT nyx.net:



On 31 Aug 2009 at 0:22, Randall Buth wrote:

"Is Hebrew a Dead Language" seems to ask the question in the
wrong way. So I've changed the thread name

vayyixtov Washburn
>Three Targumim were found at Qumran, so at least somebody was using
them for a century
or more before the destruction of Jerusalem. There were several
other
items in Aramaic
found in the caves, as well.>

The word 'them' may cover over the reality with generalities.
what are these "Them"?

I'm not sure I understand the question. The "them" in my statement refers to the Targums
that were found; I should hope that would have been obvious.

It turns out that Qumran testifies to an
absence of targum in their community, and presumably from those
joining the community.

First, I'm not prepared to make such a leap. Second, I don't accept the "community"
hypothesis. So I don't find this statement convincing.

and as David mentions, this is not because
they had anything against Aramaic. They have quite a few Aramaic
texts. But their Bible was primarily Hebrew, and understood in
Hebrew, with a secondary access to -- Greek Bible.

Of course their Bible was primarily Hebrew; that really doesn't tell us anything about their
use of or attitude toward Aramaic, or even of Targums.

Before Qumran we had three interesting stories about targumim. And
all were
focussed on Job for some reason.
1. The LXX mentioned that they used the 'Aramaic history' when
translatiing Job.
2. Two stories about Gamliel and a targum to Job exist (tShabb.
13:2, yShabb
15c and other references not at hand)

OK.

so what do we find at Qumran? Two copies of Aramaic Job, and a
snippet from
Lev 16 that may or may not refer to a targum of the whole book.

Do you have a different hypothesis about what it was? As far as I know, it's commonly
accepted among Qumran scholars that it was a fragment of a Targum of Leviticus.

And
the long
Job targum shows features of having been imported from the East.

What exactly are these "features"?

So Qumran was willing to use Aramaic Bible when available, though
from
manuscript evidence they appeared to use the Hebrew Bible (plus some
Greek).

Precisely. Whoever put the scrolls in the caves used or had access to all three, and took
steps to preserve all three. I'm not sure what your point is.

They apparently did not have access to a written targum of the
whole
Bible or even
of the Tora.

This also is not a leap I am prepared to make. What we have, we have by the accident of
preservation. That's the main hazard of archaeology and ancient manuscript study; what
got preserved may or may not reflect the actual situation, we just don't know. Statements
like this are little more than speculation, and I prefer not to go that route.

And it appears that a targum of Job circulated in antiquity that
was
popular all over the Jewish world, with two copies turning up in our
Qumran
mss. there was good reason for this world-wide popularity of a Job
targum.
The Hebrew text has singular dialectical difficulties.

I'm still not sure what your point is.

Dave Washburn

http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
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