Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT sil.org]

In that case was he not repeating himself in writing "Babylonians,... 
Mesopotamian Jews"? And was he then talking about Greek and Roman Jews 
in the following paragraph? Hardly, because in the previous paragraph 
he contrasts Jews with Romans. Obviously elsewhere he is referring to 
Hebrew as "our own tongue", which is a slightly different expression, 
and anyway who said he had to be consistent? I think the evidence 
points to Josephus being bilingual in Hebrew and Aramaic.

Peter Kirk

PS Thank you for the Garbini extract.


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re[5]: Reliability of Josephus, compared with NT and MT
Author:  mc2499 AT mclink.it at internet
Date:    19/07/1999 10:53

<snip>

>I think so, because if you
>read on a little you will come to this passage: "Parthians, 
>Babylonians, Southern Arabians, Mesopotamian Jews, and Adiabenians, 
>thanks to my labours, were accurately informed..."

Josephus was writing to the Jews in those places.

(whereas, as we
>read later, Greeks and Romans were not) because they had access to the 
>original version. Now could these people read a Hebrew original? Not 
>likely! But this looks to me like a good summary list of 
>Aramaic-speaking peoples who could read Josephus' original if it was 
>in Aramaic. A good argument, I think, that for Josephus "my native 
>language", or "the language of our country", was Aramaic rather than 
>Hebrew.

Aramaic to Josephus was the Syrian language (AJ 10,1,2). He clearly makes 
the distinction between the two languages, that of Syria and that of Judea.
He never once mentions that the Hebrews of his day spoke the Syrian language.

When he says (in AJ 3,7,5) "On these [buttons of the ephod] were engraven 
the names of the sons of Jacob, in our own country letters, and in our own 
tongue", was he referring to Aramaic or Hebrew?

Cheers,


Ian