Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

Dear Kelly,

I can dream up as many analogies that favour a position as I can those that
argue against it.

If we look at the texts however, we see that the Hebrew used in the DSS is
not a formal language. Phonetic decisions are being made: how shall I
represent that word, that sound. Digraphs are used to represent vowels.
There are phonetic novelties: when final he represents an /o/ it is
sometimes preceded by a waw. There are examples when an alef follows a yod
or waw to make sure that these latter are pronounced as consonants. And
there are other examples to show that the scribes were concerned with the
pronunciation of the words. This guarantees that the language was being used. 

There were very many scribal hands involved in the writing of these texts
making phonological decisions -- over 800, as though most only wrote one
text then stopped. This is of course highly unlikely. It is more probable
that the scribes practised their art (I think in Jerusalem) copying texts
all their lives. It's just that only one or perhaps two examples of their
work were taken to Qumran. No other centre in Palestine, I don't think,
could provide such a large body of scribes -- though some texts may of
course have been copied in some other place. This suggests that Hebrew was
being spoken in Jerusalem.

Still there are many problems to be resolved regarding the use of language.
For example there are very few texts that use a form of Hebrew similar to
MH -- and despite this Qimron thinks that that dialect was the one spoken
by the scroll writers. This seems unjustified, for the bulk is written in a
dialect uniquely found in the DSS and not "proto-MH". Were these different
forms of Hebrew both used in Jerusalem? Was the "proto-MH" actually spoken
at all at the stage when those texts were written? If so, was it spoken in
Jerusalem? How does Aramaic really fit in to the linguistic picture. Was
there a Jewish community that spoke Aramaic? (At the time of the
hellenistic crisis, I see Jerusalem as the centre of the tiny Jewish
city-state, which really only expanded under the later Hasmoneans, John
Hyrcanus and Alexander Jannaeus.) Jerusalem was surrounded by numerous
varieties of Aramaic. Hence it was subjected to linguistic assault from all
directions.

Sorry, I'm rambling.


Ian