Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT sil.org]

Do you have the Greek text of Josephus at hand? I know that in English 
"common" can mean "vulgar", but can the word which Josephus used here 
mean that, or does he mean (as I assumed) that knowledge of Greek was 
widespread, even or especially among the lower classes? Of course the 
Romans in Palestine would have needed Greek-speaking servants, and 
would-be servants might have learned Greek in the hope of getting a 
plum job with a senior Roman.

Re a point in your other posting on this topic: I would suppose that 
Pilate spoke in Greek, the most widely spoken language in the eastern 
part of the empire (and actually also in Rome) at the time. I would 
suppose that most of his audience understood at least the basics of 
what he said. He may also have had an interpreter; I would guess there 
would be some evidence somewhere if that was a widespread practice in 
the Roman empire. Most conquerors assume that their subject peoples 
understand the language of the empire, if they don't, that's their 
problem! Anyway, as you said, Herod had promoted Greek culture and 
language. You seem to be suggesting that all Jews who learned Greek 
became monolingual, forgetting all their Hebrew and/or Aramaic and 
cutting themselves off from their families and the surrounding 
community. Possible, but unlikely. More likely there was a spectrum of 
bi- and trilingualism in the city, with some monolingual speakers of 
each of the three languages but with most people have some degree of 
competence in two or three languages. I accept that this may not be 
provable (especially if you reject such evidence as mine from 
Josephus) any more than the date and authorship of the writings of 
Josephus, but sometimes one has to accept things as probable short of 
actual concrete proof.

I'm afraid your evidence from the library doesn't help at all as we 
are thinking primarily of biligualism in spoken language, or at least 
I thought we were. I can provide many modern examples of people who 
are totally bilingual in spoken language but can only read and write 
in one of the languages, because the other has no orthography or its 
orthography is not used in that particular place, or simply because 
the people have had formal education in only one of the languages they 
know.

An Estonian who watches and understands Finnish TV has acquired some 
degree of bilingualism, which is not hard as the languages are quite 
similar. I guess the Estonians who are now pouring into Finland 
understand quite well when Finns talk to them, but have trouble making 
themselves understood to Finns. That sort of one-sided bilingualism 
could of course have happened in ancient times also, though not for 
the same reason. I would guess that many Jews who could understand 
Greek quite well would speak it very badly.

Peter Kirk

PS As for your back burner point, we can only make progress when we 
agree the criteria to be used for judging the dating of Josephus as 
well as Ezra and 1 Esdras. The book of Ezra and Josephus' works both 
present themselves as in part the first person reminiscences, complete 
with historical setting and specific dating, of a person unknown 
outside these texts. If this is sufficient evidence to date Josephus' 
works in the late 1st century AD, it is also sufficient evidence to 
date Ezra in the 5th century BC.


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re[3]: Hebrew & Aramaic again (Peter)
Author:  mc2499 AT mclink.it at internet
Date:    17/07/1999 16:48


Dear Peter,

You wrote:

>While looking at Josephus in answer to the other division of this 
>thread, I came across the following in Josephus AJ book 20 chapter 11 
>section 2:
>
>"our nation does not encourage those that learn the languages of many 
>nations, and so adorn their discourses with the smoothness of their 
>periods; because they look upon this sort of accomplishment as common, 
>not only to all sorts of free-men, but to as many of the servants as 
>please to learn them."
>
>Thus Josephus is saying that some knowledge of Greek was common among 
>the Jews of his period,

On the contrary he says that such learning is scorned upon, ie common. He 
doesn't say such knowledge is widespread. There were however Jewish Greek 
speaking communities. Herod was a great proponent of Greek culture and 
founded a number of Greek cities.

>in fact more so among the common people than
>among the intellectual elite. Clear evidence for bilingualism, with a 
>rather interesting slant to it.

Not at all, though there were clearly monolingual speakers of Greek as the 
Babatha library implies: these are mainly personal letters.

In the end I think the hypothesis of bilingualism is unverifiable, 
therefore functionally meaningless. (This is not to say that I totally 
negate the possibility of bilingualism in a multi-language society.)


Cheers,


Ian

(I notice the subject which interests me, ie Ezra/Josephus/1 Esdras has 
been put on the backburner.)


---
You are currently subscribed to b-hebrew as: Peter_Kirk AT sil.org 
To unsubscribe, forward this message to 
$subst('Email.Unsub')
To subscribe, send an email to join-b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu.