Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Henry Churchyard <churchyh AT ccwf.cc.utexas.edu>]

> Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 13:37:15 +0200
> From: Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>
> Subject: Re: Hebrew &amp; Aramaic again  Was: Josephus &amp; 1Esdras

> Thanks for your response. I gather from it that there isn't any
> direct evidence for bilingualism in Josephus's time.  Will you
> concede that there is a fair chance that he was a native speaker of
> Hebrew or would you like to claim that he was tri-lingual? He claims
> that his intention was to "do no more than translate the Hebrew
> books into the Greek language" (AJ 10,10,6)

The general sociolinguistic situation of 1st century B.C. Palestine
was such as would be expected to produce rather numerous bilinguals,
trilinguals, and even quadrilingual speakers (at a functional level,
though not necessarily at a native-speaker level).  The most obvious
languages, knowledge of which might some bring benefits, were Aramaic
Greek, and Latin; Hebrew can be added in for Jews.  And then there
were other languages in a lesser degree of contact with the
Palestinian population, but which a few might have found it to their
benefit to know, such as languages spoken by visitors to Palestine --
some of whom (such as non-Aramaic speaking inhabitants of the Parthian
empire) might not know either Greek or Aramaic.  I'll leave aside such
exotica as Galatian Celtic ;-)  But seriously, just open your Bible to
Acts 2:8-11 for a capsule summary.


>> If most Jews were fluent in Hebrew, why did targums even exist in
>> the first place?
 
> I don't deny that there were Aramaic communities. The Idumeans and
> the numerous other peoples were brought under the Judaic yoke by
> people like John Hyrcanus and Alexander Jannaeus.

>>> [...] so it would seem that the Hebrew and Aramaic communities
>>> were quite distinct.

So on the theory of little bilingualism, would there be a strong
language barrier between say Galilean Jews and those of Judea proper?
I don't get that idea from the texts...


> 3) the use of theophoric references in Ezra indicates that it
>    is secondary to 1 Esdras;

>> the basic non-historicity of Ezra, and its derivation through two
>> processes of first folklorization and then de-folklorization, is
>> something which needs to be proven, not assumed.

> There was no "process" of "folklorization": this is only your theory
> and based on what, I don't know.  1 Esdras was simply written as it
> was in a genre in which parts of Daniel, Esther, Judith, Tobit,

But when you say that, you're basically assuming that there's _no real
history at all_ in Ezra; if there is actually some historical content
in Ezra (despite the obvious problems that people are familiar with),
then your hypothesis would require first the folklorization of that
history (writing in the wine, kings, and women), and then the
defolklorization (writing out the wine, kings, and women).  I'm not
saying it's impossible, just somewhat uneconomical.


> The assumption that Ezra has any historical value needs to proven,
> not assumed

Both the assertions "Ezra has no historical value whatsoever" and
"Ezra has some solid historical underpinnings" need to be proved, not
assumed.


>> Anyway, here's a challenge -- compare 2 Samuel with the account of
>> early Persian monarchs in the Shah-Nameh (both of these writings
>> are attested in written form roughly about 800 years after the
>> events they purport to describe), and tell me which one reads more
>> like history?

> (I don't have access to works such as the one you cite. Is it
> available on the net?)

Yes, at least the most famous parts are (Sohrab and Rustam and all
that).  I haven't looked at it for a while (and then not
"professionally"), but if I remember correctly, the Shahnameh's
knowledge of the Arsacid dynasty is extremely hazy to almost
nonexistent -- to say nothing of the Achaemenid.  (I'll probably go to
library soon and look it up, because now that my memory is jogged, I'm
kind of intrigued on the subject, independent of this discussion.)  An
e-text of a partial translation is on-line at various URLs, including
http://www.persian.com/ferdowsi/home.html , but this must be rather
condensed, considering that the original is said to be 60,000 verses
of poetry.


[Aramaic snippets in NT:]

> They had no value in the discourse of the text. They could be
> gibberish that tend to authenticate the "veracity" of the events by
> impressing the reader.

1) They can't be "gibberish"  because they're actual Aramaic words.
2) Aramaic was not particularly a language identified as Jewish, and
Greek readers would be even less likely to know Hebrew than Aramaic,
so if the idea is to add impressively mysterious pseudo-verisimilitude
(rather than an attempt to preserve the actual verbal form of a few of
Jesus' utterances), why wasn't Hebrew used instead?


>> P.S. There's actually a large literature on language contact,
>> bilingualism, and "code switching" which people could look up,
>> rather than abstractly speculating and generalizing from anecdotes.

> Please feel free to quote some of this literature relevantly for our
> situation

Actually, this isn't my main area at all, and I've only read a few of
the classics in the field, a few introductory works, and a few odd
papers here and there that happened to intersect other research
interests -- so I could only really direct you to the aforesaid few
classics and introductions.  But I know enough to realize that
bilingual speakers and bilingual texts are distinct phenomena, and I
would advise you to look into such matters if you intend to present
your arguments in a serious academic paper.

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