Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Ian Hutchesson <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

Dear Henry,

Continuing...

>>> 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.  

Having looked at the comparison you suggested, it was obvious that the text
was a "folk" epic, which for some reason you thought was appropriate for a
comparison with regards to historiography as displayed by certain texts. I
didn't think that there was any sense in the comparison other than that it
would be clear that the shahnameh was a falk epic, where as the Hebrew
texts aren't. I later suggested you make a more reasonable comparison, with
Polybius for example, a text written in a known period, that claims to be
historical. I think you would agree that Polybius's work is clearly more
historically oriented.

>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.  

The communications would not of course be random.

>Monolingual
>speakers of the two languages could communicate to some degree, but
>only by building up some kind of knowledge about the equivalences

This doesn't reflect reality as I know it. Estonians usually watch Finnish
TV -- or did back in the Soviet days.

>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...

When Clinton talks to Barak do you see any signs of interpreters. Indoors
of course you would.

>> You have *no* evidence for bilingualism?
>
>Do you have evidence for Hebrew/Aramaic interpreters?  

I guess Pontius Pilate was supposed to have been speaking either Hebrew or
Aramaic -- or was the crowd able to understand Latin?

>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.

Unfortunately our evidence on the matter can only come via text. When in
caches found in other archaeological situations provide word lists,
bilingual texts, comments in one language on another, we have clear signs
of language interface. You still have provided none. I fear you simply can
give *nothing* tangible for your proposal of widespread bilingualism.

>> [...] 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 shows that Hebrew was a spoken language. It shows a language that is not
directly from Biblical Hebrew, ie there are signs in the *Hebrew* that are
different and not attributable to Aramaic. No more can people talk about a
dead or dying language: it was quite fruitful, active and changing. At
Murabba'at we have three active languages, with n othing to show that one
had predominance. No more can people talk about Aramaic as the common
language in Jerusalem for it can only be a hypothesis and not given.

>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?  

Can you give justifications for the orthography and phonology of DSS Hebrew
that don't include the language being used commonly???

>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.

How else does a language maintain its flexibility and productivity? DSS
Hebrew is clearly not a dead, or liturgical, language. If it isn't spoken
regularly then it dies. The evidence says that it was very much alive.


Cheers,


Ian