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  • From: peter_kirk AT sil.org
  • To: <b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re[2]: targums
  • Date: Mon, 17 May 1999 19:17:25 -0400


Dear Jack,

You wrote: "This conforms to my opinion that Hebrew continued to be
the working language of the religious and literate (spoken and
written) in certain social pockets while Aramaic was the spoken
language of the illiterate class. This does not pose that literate
pietists also did not have Aramaic as a primary language and certain
texts were produced for that purpose."

Documentary evidence tells us very little about the language of the
illiterate class. So what evidence do you have for saying that this
was Aramaic not Hebrew? Clearly there were some Hebrew speakers and
some Aramaic speakers around, but the evidence quoted in this thread
so far is quite insufficient to tell us where the balance was
especially among the common people.

You wrote: "In Ant. 1.1.1 #33 Josephus calls the Aramaic word
"sabbata" THN (EBRAION DIALEKTON. In Ant. 3.10.6 #252 he call the
Aramaic "asartha" (EN (EBRAIOI ASARQA KALOUSI. Josephus refers to
Aramaic as the "Hebrew tongue." So does Luke...so does the author of
4G."

Where exactly does Luke say this? Are you referring to some MSS of
Luke 23:38? We don't know what language would have been used for the
third line of the superscription on the cross, and quite likely this
passage was copied from John 19:20. Are you referring to Acts 21:40
and 22:2? No doubt Paul (or if you prefer Luke's image of Paul),
educated in the law (see 22:3), would have been quite capable of
speaking in Hebrew or Aramaic as he chose, and the NIV rendering
Hebrew is simply based on assuming that Aramaic was the language of
his hearers. Similarly Acts 26:40: Paul knew both languages and so the
voice could have addressed him in either. Now the gospel of John may
be a different matter: are BHQZAQA "Bethzatha" 5:2, GABBAQA "Gabbatha"
19:13, GOLGOQA "Golgotha" 19:17 and RABBOUNI "Rabbuni" 20:16
unambiguously Aramaic and not Hebrew? What about Revelation? Are not
ABADDWN "Abaddon" in 9:11 and ARMAGEDWN "Armageddon" in 16:16 Hebrew
rather than Aramaic? These are all the NT references to the "Hebrew"
language. It is interesting that when Luke quotes an Aramaic word he
does not write HEBRAIS, HEBRAIKOS or HEBRAISTI, but rather writes THi
IDIAi DIALEKTWi (Acts 1:19, the same phrase he uses in 2:6,8 which
explicitly refers to a variety of different languages) - and there are
so many variant forms of this supposedly Aramaic word (AKELDAMAC,
ACELDAMAC, AKELDAIMAC, AKELDAMA, AKELDAMAK are all found, and
presumably the rough breathing in the Nestle-Aland text is an
editorial addition) that I doubt if we can be sure what language this
is.

One point of Ian's which you don't seem to have addressed: Do you have
good evidence that the DSS are the remains of a single collection of
books from a single source, as you hold, rather than different books
from a wide area, as Ian holds? Perhaps if you could settle that issue
and agree on which period you are talking about, you might come closer
to agreement.

Peter Kirk





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