Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>]

Peter Kirk wrote:



>Dear Rolf,
>
>Thank you for trying to clarify the issues here. My points here are in
>response (if not answer) to your numbered sets of questions.
>
>1) I would be interested in answers here also. One approach would
>include comparison (for the moment excluding verb forms, see below) of
>features in the texts with features of texts of known (or relatively
>better known) date e.g. the Moabite Stone, DSS etc - and those for
>which we have an earliest possible date e.g. the biblical books
>describing post-exilic history. Of course we have to be careful here
>of uncertain inductive or even circular reasoning. We also have to be
>careful because features can be mixed in texts which have been
>redacted over a long period, and also because some features are
>dialectical rather than diachronic. But I think there is a possibility
>of showing something, even if in part it will be a matter of relative
>rather than absolute dating. Once a reasonably secure framework has
>been established, it can be used for dating other texts whose date is
>otherwise unknown.
>
>2) Once such a framework exists based on less controversial features,
>it will be possible to relate the verb forms used in particular texts
>to their dating, without circular argumentation if verb forms were
>excluded from the initial list of features compared.
>
>3) I would accept that any framework developed as in 1) above would
>not be entirely secure and would be unlikely to convince scholars who
>are already committed to an incompatible view of the dating of the
>biblical texts. Therefore such people would be unlikely to accept the
>results of the analysis coming from 2) above. In this way I would
>expect scholars' presuppositions concerning the dating of the texts to
>affect their understanding of the Hebrew language.
>
>Peter Kirk
>

>
><snip>
>
>This being said, I must stress that I have nothing against critical
>scholarship, (provided that its limitations are kept in mind), so therefore
>I pose my questions (and these are sincere questions in order to get good
>input:
>
>
>(1) There can be no doubt that there are old and young traits in the
>biblical text (the MW-suffix in some Psalms versus compound verbs
>consisting of a participle and a finite form, as examples), but is there a
>way to date the text on linguistic grounds? Do you have any sources?
>
>(2) To date the different books on linguistic means is one thing, to show
>that the meaning of the verbal system has changed from the old parts to the
>new parts of the Tanach is quite another thing. Is it possible to
>demonstrate such a change without a particular presupposition about the
>meaning of the different parts of the verbal system,i.e. can it be
>demonstrated without circular aguments? Do such studies or attempts exist?
>
>(3) Will different views regarding the age of parts of the text or of the
>whole text affect our understaning of the classical Hebrew verbal system?
>In other words: how will a view that the whole text is younger than the
>sixth century affect our understanding of the verbs compared with a view
>that parts of the text are much older? Do we have any sources here?
>
><snip>
>





Dear Peter,

Your suggestions are reasonable, but I do not see how they can throw any
light on our principal question, whether the meaning of the verbal system
has changed.
If we compare a text of Mishnaic Hebrew with a biblical text, we
immediately see a difference in the use of verbs, but this is not the case
if we compare one Hebrew text of the Tanach with another text of the
Tanach. If we use statistics, we find that there is no significant
difference in the occurrences of WAYYIQTOL, YIQTOL, QATAL and WEQATAL in
the different books, so why should we expect a change in verbal meaning?

It seems to me that the principal reason for suggesting a change in verbal
meaning, is that the use of verbs in many Bible books flies in the face of
the four-component model; that is, the suggestion is not based on
observation but on theory! The two excellent posts of Greg regarding the
DSS adequately illustrate the problems of a linguistic dating of the books
in the Tanach.


 Let me illustrate this further with the Aramaic of Daniel. Zdravko
Stefanovic,1992, "The Aramaic of Daniel in the Light of Old
Aramaic",Sheffield:JSOT Press, draws the conclusion that the Aramaic of
Daniel "contains a significant amount of material from OA /Old Aramaic/
texts." (p 108). This accords with my own study of this text, and I would
go so far as to say no word or structure in the Aramaic of Daniel (not even
the musical instruments with names of possibly Grteek origin) demand a
dating contrary to what the book itself claims.

However, most researchers would ascribe a date for the book to about 165
BCE. To solve the discrepancy with the seemingly old age of the Aramaic
text, two suggestions are given, (1) The author mimicked Old/Imperial
Aramaic to lend credence to his prophecies which actually are history in
prophetic disguise, and (2) A part of the book is quite old, but the final
redaction took place in the middle of the second century BCE. This shows
that what is believed to be history often clash with linguistic evidence,
as also Greg showed. If a diachronic study should be attempted, the
principles of G.A. Rendsburg, 1990, "Linguistic Evidence for the Northern
Origin of Selected Psalms" should be studied. His methods are fine, and he
makes quite a strong case, but still there can be much doubt about his
conclusions.

Regarding your point (2). Even if a rough dating of the different books on
linguistic grounds could be done, how would you use this information to
answer your question about a possible change of the verbal system? Would
you use the temporal reference of the verbs? And would that be possible if
tense is not grammaticalized? Or would you use the premise that YIQTOL,
WAYYIQTOL, QATAL, and WEQATAL are different conjugations, and a different
use of these would indicate a change of verbal meaning? In that case, which
characteristic would you use? And would your conclusions be equally sound
if there are just two conjugations, as I claim?

I find diachronic dating on linguistic grounds extremely difficult, and I
am not aware of any good data that suggest a change in the verbal meaning
in the Tanach.


Regards

Rolf


Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo












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