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  • From: David Steinberg <david.l.steinberg AT rogers.com>
  • To: "Bryant J. Williams III" <bjwvmw AT com-pair.net>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Early and late biblical Hebrew
  • Date: Fri, 25 Nov 2011 15:31:51 -0500

It is a very good piece of research. At my request, Ms Vern sent me a copy. However, without her OK, of course, I cannot share the text with others.

All the best

David Steinberg

On 25/11/2011 1:38 PM, Bryant J. Williams III wrote:
Dear David,

Do you have a link to Robyn Vern's dissertation? I have seen various
references
to it in google, bing, yahoo, etc., searches, but have not located it.

Rev. Bryant J. Williams III
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Steinberg"<david.l.steinberg AT rogers.com>
To:<b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, November 25, 2011 7:26 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Early and late biblical Hebrew


Yes I agree with him. I suggest that you read his more extensive works -

Young, Ian,- /Diversity in Pre-Exilic Hebrew,/ Forschungen zum Alten
Testament, Coronet Books Inc, 1993, ISBN-10: 3161460588

- Biblical Hebrew: /Studies in Chronology and Typology/ (Journal for the
Study of the Old Testament Supplement), T.& T. Clark Publishers, 2004,
ISBN-10: 0826468411

Young, Ian, Robert Rezetko, Martin Ehrensvärd. /Linguistic Dating of
Biblical Texts: Volume 1 - An Introduction to Approaches and
Problems/(BibleWorld) (Paperback), Equinox Publishing (October 2008),
ISBN-10: 1845530829; Volume 2 - A New Synthesis and a Comprehensive
Bibliography

Three works that I suggest that you read carefully are:

Van Seters, John (1975) - /Abraham in History and Tradition/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_in_History_and_Tradition#CITEREFVan_Seters1975
Thomas L. Thompson - /The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives/
(Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York, 1974). Read the section on names.

Redford, Donald B. (1970) - /A Study of the Biblical Story of Joseph/.
Leiden, The Netherlands: E.J. Brill.

We can assume that biblical prose "historic" texts such as /Samuel,
Kings/ etc. may have been read by literate scribes. Even these were
clearly modernized. A careful read of Polzin is worth the effort -
Polzin, Robert, /Late Biblical Hebrew: Toward an Historical Typology of
Biblical Hebrew Prose/. (Scholars Press 1976. This isdiscussed in Vern,
Robyn, "The Relevance of Linguistic Evidence to the Early Dating of the
Archaic Poetry of the Hebrew Bible", PhD dissertation, University of
Sydney, 2008.). Polzin carefully examines the changes in language
between /Samuel-Kings/ and the parallel passages in /Chronicles/.

One has to accept that most of the literature of the Hebrew Bible was
meant to be comprehended read or recited aloud by a basically illiterate
audience in the period of say 800-400 BCE ( see van der Toorn, Karel.
/Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible/, Harvard University
Press, 2009 - worth a careful read).The audience would no more have
understood the language of 1400 -1200 BCE (case, mood, and other short
vowel endings, the existence of final /y/ and /w/ which were lost in
later Hebrew consequent on thedisappearance of final short vowels,
differences in syntax) than a modern audience, not specifically trained
in Middle English, would understand a recitation of Chaucer. On the
other hand, a sprinkling ofstandard archaisms in the "archaic poetry"
would present no more difficulties in comprehension that the scattering
of "thous", "thys" and "beholds" etc in a 19th century English love
poem. (See /Time and Modal Implications of PC in Various Categories of
BH Poetry/ http://www.adath-shalom.ca/history_of_hebrew3a.htm#time_mod_pc )

As far as dating by names go, I have already mentioned the cases of the
Iliad and the Nibelungenlied both of which contain ancient names and
originated in known historical events. In both cases they were written
down much later and neither contains much of the historical events in
any recognizable form.

The fact that St. George might really have been a third-fourth century
Roman soldier says nothing about the historicity or date of composition
of the St. George literature that has come down to us.

The fundamental situation is that we would all like to prove the date of
various pieces of the biblical text and, in most cases, be able to
demonstrate that the biblical Abraham, Moses etc. lived and did what
they are described as doing in the text. However, archaeology, critical
studies of history etc. contradict such naive readings of the text. The
linguistic evidence, which Avi Hurvitz (see
http://www.houseofdavid.ca/anc_heb_6.htm#_edn6 ), Cross etc. considered
objective indicators of date have turned out to be invalid ( see
http://www.houseofdavid.ca/anc_heb_6.htm#ident_prex ).

In my view we simply have to accept that we cannot linguistically date
the material and not to continue to grab at straws.

David Steinberg

1. The material I discuss and reference in the box Can Biblical Texts be
Linguistically Dated? http://www.houseofdavid.ca/anc_heb_6.htm

2. Vern, Robyn, "The Relevance of Linguistic Evidence to the Early
Dating of the Archaic Poetry of the Hebrew Bible", PhD dissertation,
University of Sydney, 2008.

If you look at the text of any of the so called archaic poems, and you
revert it to its probable form c. 1200-1400 BCE (add case, mood, and
other short vowel endings, revert contractions of final /y/ and /w/
consequent on the disapearance of final short vowels etc.) you will find
that the orthography is not really archaic and, in many cases, such as
the use of matres - is often typologically late.






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