Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Dave Washburn" <dwashbur AT nyx.net>]

NPL,
>       It is a truism that written literary language is often different
> from the spoken language. You have it in almost-if not in every place where
> writing has been introduced. Some well-known examples: Arabic, classic
> Arabic versus the language spoken in Morocco, Iraq, Egypt, you name it.
> Classical Arabic makes it possible for people living in the Machreb to
> understand people living in the east, as the spoken language is very
> different. Norwegian has two forms, bokmål and New Norwegian, but indeed
> many local dialects. Greek has its katharevousa and its demotikee (official
> language versus the popular language). Even a tiny country like my own have
> spoken dialects that I can hardly understand-the differences can be
> considerable-but only one written language. If we get to English, the
> situation is quite hopeless.

On the other hand we have the papyri in Greek, which demonstrate
that the form of the language used in the New Testament was not
the literary form, but the common spoken form.  Within that form
we see various styles, some leaning a little toward a literary form
(Attic) and some almost idiolectic (e.g. Revelation).  So it seems to
me that, while we can suggest that there was a "literary" form of
the Hebrew language in antiquity, without more outside evidence
I'm not sure we can safely assume that "biblical Hebrew" is (or
strongly resembles) that form of the language as opposed to any
other.  So as you said later in your post, it's easy to posit such an
idea, but actually demonstrating it is, I suspect, pretty much
impossible.  The most it can be for now is a working hypothesis.


Dave Washburn
http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
"In the face of an obstacle which is impossible to
overcome, stubborness is stupid."  Simone de Beauvoir