Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

> Subject: Re: Hebrew & Aramaic again (was: Josephus & 1Esdras)
> From: Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>
> Date: Sat, 17 Jul 1999 03:45:32 +0200

>>>> 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 haven't looked at this 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.

> Is this an exercise in relativity?  Why not do a comparison between
> Polybius as a representative of historical writing and any Hebrew
> historical work in the OT/HB?

Not sure what your comments are addressed to here.  Your general
position is that OT historical passages don't in fact have much
historical factual basis (though I don't know what exactly you would
say about 2 Samuel) -- so why not take a text which is indubitably
what you claim the Bible to be (a narrative that is nominally
historical in form, but which has floated free from almost any
factual basis, especially in its earlier parts) -- and compare this
(i.e. the Shahnameh) with a section of the Bible whose attested
existence is roughly at the same time distance from the events it
purports to relate (2 Samuel).  Of course, this is merely an exercise
in comparing literary genres (and not an actual historical
verification of 2 Samuel), but nevertheless I think the results of
this thought experiment are interesting and instructive in a way.


>>>>> [...] 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?

> Is there a strong language barrier between the speakers of Nynorsk
> and Riksmal even though the one won't speak the language of the
> other?

Hebrew and Aramaic were similar in many ways, but in my linguistic
judgement, I would doubt whether random connected utterances in one
of the languages would in general be automatically intelligible to
a strictly monolingual speaker of the other language.  Monolingual
speakers of the two languages could communicate to some degree, but
only by building up some kind of knowledge about the equivalences
between the two languages, and accomodating the other speaker in
various ways (backtracking when the other shows incomprehension
etc.) -- in effect, acquiring some rudimentary skills of the
dreaded bilingualism.

>> I don't get that idea from the texts...

> What idea do you get from the texts and which texts exactly would
> you like to refer to?

When Galileans interact with Jerusalemites in the NT or Josephus, I
don't see any mention of interpreters...

> You have *no* evidence for bilingualism?

Do you have evidence for Hebrew/Aramaic interpreters?  The evidence
you want (bilingual inscriptions) wouldn't prove what you think it
would prove anyway.  You seem to have a slightly peculiar idea of
bilingualism -- that it must be acquired through advanced academic
study.  That's simply not how most bilingualism has been acquired
throughout human history.

> [...] Hebrew and Aramaic, for which there are a hellovalot of
> unsupportable stuff in the literature that should be rewritten given
> the data from the DSS, but old habits die hard.

I don't see how the Dead Sea Scrolls overturn anything dramatically
here; it was already known from the Mishna that a kind of
"post-Biblical" Hebrew was sometimes used in literary composition.
The question is what was the functional domain of this post-Biblical
Hebrew?  Was it used in everyday life?  Was it used when haggling for
vegetables in the marketplace?  Or did it tend to be restricted to
religious contexts?  I'm not aware that the Dead Sea Scrolls provides
direct evidence on this point.

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       % Henry Churchyard         http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/