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b-hebrew - [b-hebrew] Two High Registers of Post-Exilic Hebrew?

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  • From: David Steinberg <david.l.steinberg AT rogers.com>
  • To: K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Two High Registers of Post-Exilic Hebrew?
  • Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2011 12:22:03 -0500

Your recent reply to Karl made some valid points. However, it does ignore the linguistic complexity of Judea during the period 500 BCE-70 CE ( see http://www.adath-shalom.ca/history_of_hebrew.htm#PostExH ; http://www.houseofdavid.ca/anc_heb_diglossia.htm#koine_PMH ).

The first thing that should be said is that the culture was overall oral with real literacy, in the sense of being able to express oneself in writing, being as low as in contemporary Greece (say 10 percent of the population) - see Karel van der Toorn, /Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible /(Harvard University

Press, 2009)


There can be no question, given the evidence at hand, that in Judea -
a) many, almost certainly most, Jews spoke Palestinian Jewish Western Aramaic. A descendant of a similar northern dialect is found in e.g. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targum_Pseudo-Jonathan> ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targum_Pseudo-Jonathan ).

b) many Jews spoke Greek either as a first or second language and wrote in Greek. ( Although a bit later and further north the evidence of Beit She'arim may be relevant. At Beit She'arim (burial place of the Sanhedrin in the 2-3 centuries CE) the dominant language of inscriptions, presumably written by and for the family is Greek. The following is from /Beth She'arim, vol III The Excavations 1953-1/958 by N. Avigad (Rutgers U Press, 1976) -

The most prominent feature is the profusion of Greek inscriptions in contrast to the paucityof Hebrew inscriptions. It emerges that Greek was the tongue spoken by many Palestinian Jews.... Another interesting fact is noteworthy: all the men referred to in the Hebrew inscriptions have Hebrew names (except for one whose name is Greek in form...); whereas all the women have Greco-Roman names....

c) in many inland localities, peasant and small town Jews spoke a Hebrew dialect or dialects that later became the new rabbinic literary language called by the rabbis leshon Hakhamim and now called in English Mishnaic Hebrew or Rabbinic Hebrew or Middle Hebrew.

At this time it is clear that several written languages were in use -

a) the Aramaic of Daniel ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_Aramaic ) consciously modelled on the already ancient Imperial Aramaic ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Aramaic#Imperial_Aramaic <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Aramaic#Imperial_Aramaic%20> ). This would probably have been as incomprehensible to the Aramaic speaker on the street in 100 BCE as Chaucer's English is to an English speaker on the street today. We must assume that texts like Daniel were written by trained scribes for trained scribes. The Archaic language would have given a patina of ancient truth (see van der Toorn re. scribes writing for scribes);

b) the Middle Aramaic of (consonantal basis of ) Targum Onkolos. This was probably an archaising literary dialect still comprehensible to the Aramaic speaker on the street in the same way that the English of the Authorized Version is still comprehensible to a reasonably literate modern English speaker;

c) Post-classical Biblical Hebrew ( http://www.houseofdavid.ca/anc_heb_abb_dia.htm#PCBH <http://www.houseofdavid.ca/anc_heb_abb_dia.htm#PCBH>) which slowly developed into the sort of Hebrew we find in most of the Qumran documents ( http://www.houseofdavid.ca/anc_heb_abb_dia.htm#QH <http://www.houseofdavid.ca/anc_heb_abb_dia.htm#QH>). This would have been difficult for a Mishnaic Hebrew speaking peasant to comprehend though exposure to Torah reading would have given him some grasp of simple prose Biblical Hebrew. To see how different the two forms of Hebrew are see Bendavid, Abba,/Biblical Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew/(in Hebrew), Dvir 1967 (2 volumes) - vol 1. pp. 331-382; vol. 2 pp. 882-924)

d) Proto-Mishnaic Hebrew - we have evidence of this only from the copper scroll in the period before 70 CE. However, it is likely that it was used as a non-literary by Hebrew speakers writing on materials that would not survive (wood, waxed wooden tablets) or if the material survives the writing does not (potshards with water soluble ink).

e) Greek (see above).

It is also very likely that spoken Aramaic was widely used as a non-literary by Aramaic speakers again writing on materials that would not survive (wood, waxed wooden tablets) or if the material survives the writing does not (potshards with water soluble ink).





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