Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ian Hutchesson" <mc2499 AT mclink.it>]

>There is perhaps an even better clue on the same lines in the language of
>the "Primary History" which throws severe doubt on a Hellenistic date for
>it. If this were its date, one would expect to find in it a significant
>number of loan words from Greek, and from Persian which influenced Hebrew at
>an earlier stage. 

It would be nice if one noted the stock of Greek influenced linguistic 
indications in the DSS: none (that I know of) to indicate that the Jews 
had been immersed in Greek culture for the previous few hundred years. 
Unfortunately, Walter's (and apparently now Peter's) basic position can 
be seen as demonstrably wrong. We know basically when the DSS were 
produced, though perhaps people of Walter's and Peter's opinion would 
now like to redate the scrolls to prior to the Greek period, so as to 
explain why there are no apparent Greek linguistic indications in the 
DSS.

>From what I remember, although there are a few Greek loan
>words in the Aramaic of Daniel and many Persian loan words in the books
>relating post-exilic history, there are none at all in the Primary History.
>This would indeed be remarkable if this was a composition from Hellenistic
>times; even if a scribe was careful to avoid Greek loan words, it is
>unlikely that he would recognise all Persian loan words, which would have
>been in Hebrew already for several hundred years, especially as most likely
>such scribes would not know any Persian. 

Daniel was partially set in Persian times, so one would expect some 
attempt at Persian traits, as there were apparent attempts at Persian 
chancelry Aramaic. What content is there in DSS texts? Qimron (The 
Hebrew of the DSS) lists *six* in total, adding "apparently borrowed 
through Aramaic". One shouldn't expect to see any Persian loan words 
present in texts written in Hebrew, unless there were some good reason.


Ian