Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Stephen C. Carlson" <scarlson AT mindspring.com>]

At 12:42 AM 5/22/99 +0200, Ian Hutchesson wrote:
>I have seen the analogy made between the Hebrew of the DSS and Latin many
>times. I have never seen anything other than the analogy itself to make the
>idea work.
[...]
>Wouldn't a form of Hebrew similar to Mishnaic H. be more likely to have
>been a learned language -- as it is more similar to the biblical Hebrew --
>whereas that found in the DSS would be the ordinary spoken language? The
>great Isaiah scroll is basically in DSS Hebrew. (Perhaps a DSS targum of
>Isaiah, Jack? Sorry, it's translated into DSS Hebrew, not Aramaic, so it's
>not significant, right?)

I'm not sure why you're so resistant to the analogy.  It is a fact that
in many cultures the writing system is highly conservative, even to the
point of requiring literate people to essentially learn a second language
to write, especially in religious texts.  I'm not just thinking of the
nearly exclusive use of Latin in Italy well until the 14th cen., but the
use of wenyan in China until the baihua movement at the end of the Qing
dynasty, the use of Sanskrit in India, the dominance of classical
Arabic, etc.

I suppose you're trying to establish that a presumption that a written
text is by default written in a language that is currently being spoken.
As numerous, transcultural examples go, this presumption is a dicey
proposition.  I'm not expressing an opinion about your conclusions
with respect to the DSS, just that the methodology you seem to wish
to apply does not appear to obtain usable results for many texts
throughout the world.

Stephen Carlson

--
Stephen C. Carlson                        mailto:scarlson AT mindspring.com
Synoptic Problem Home Page   http://www.mindspring.com/~scarlson/synopt/
"Poetry speaks of aspirations, and songs chant the words."  Shujing 2.35