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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] High Registers of Post-Exilic Hebrew and the Languages of Government and Administration
  • Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:52:04 -0500

During the Second Temple period there were two major administrative centers relating to Judea - the Temple administration and the center of political power.


About the language(s) Temple administration we have virtually no evidence. However, it is possible to surmise that administrative documents would have been kept in their best Biblical Hebrew and/or perhaps a dialect similar to Qumran Hebrew and/or in an Aramaic perhaps similar to Qumran Aramaic. The little evidence at hand suggests that Aramaic was the normal spoken language in the Temple.


Regarding the center of political power the situation is clearer i.e.

Persian - late sixth to late fourth centuries BCE.Administrative language Imperial Aramaic.

Hellenistic rule - late fourth to mid-second centuries BCE. Administrative language Greek.

Hasmonean - mid-second century to late first century BCE (see below)

Herodian - late first century CE.Administrative language(s) probably Aramaic and Greek.

Roman - early first second century BCE until the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. Administrative language Greek.

Of the Hasmonean court and administration we know very little. It is clear that at court and in administrative offices Greek and Aramaic would be heard and used for many documents. However, it is conceivable that, for nationalist reasons, the court may have promoted the use of Hebrew as a written language and possible for the conduct of court business (cf. "Qumran Hebrew as an Antilanguage", by William M. Schniedewind,/Journal of Biblical Literature/, Vol. 118, No. 2. (Summer, 1999), pp. 235-252.) If this was the case, it would be likely that different forms of Hebrew would have been used in writing and speaking. It may well have been the case that something like Qumran Hebrew may have been used for writing while the spoken Hebrew may have been closer to a form of Proto-Mishnaic Hebrew.

David Steinberg
Ottawa, Canada


For 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 modeled 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 best represented by Qumran Aramaic (See the relevant items in my bibliography ( http://www.houseofdavid.ca/anc_heb.htm ) under Cook, Koller, Muraoka.) Also relevant is the consonantal text of Targum Onkolos. These forms of Aramaic may be seen as archaizing literary dialects, 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 Proto-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 for non-literary, business or personal, documents by Hebrew speakers writing on materials that would not survive (wood, waxed wooden tablets) or if the material survives the writing does not (potsherds with water soluble ink).

e) Greek (see above).

It is also very likely that in written form, spoken Aramaic was widely used for non-literary, business or personal, documentsby 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).

David Steinberg
Ottawa, Canada




  • [b-hebrew] High Registers of Post-Exilic Hebrew and the Languages of Government and Administration, David Steinberg, 11/30/2011

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