Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Peter Kirk" <Peter_Kirk AT sil.org>]

Thank you, Ian, for this remarkable result, which can only show that Greek
was either almost unknown in the environment where the DSS were composed -
i.e. that that environment had been shielded from Hellenistic influence for
300 years or so - or else that there was a deliberate policy of avoiding
Greek words. Such a policy is of course not impossible in the political and
religious context; in the translation I have been working on we have
deliberately avoided loan words from a former colonial power's language even
when it has been difficult to find alternatives. But the consistent
application of such a policy requires a high level of sophistication: those
applying it must know Greek and also know the older forms of their own
language so that they can find the alternative words.

MIGDOL is of course used for a military structure in a number of places in
the Hebrew Bible, e.g. Judges 9:51-52. And it is formed from a well-known
Hebrew root GDL. So I don't see any reason to consider this to be a Greek or
Latin loan word.

Does anyone know whether the Hebrew of Sirach is similarly free of Greek and
Persian loan words?

Peter Kirk

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ian Hutchesson [mailto:mc2499 AT mclink.it]
> Sent: 13 October 2001 00:38
> To: Biblical Hebrew
> Subject: Re: The Case Against a Hellenistic Primary History
>
>
>
> "There are no Greek or Latin loans, though some scholars consider
> such words as mgdl 'tower' denoting a military structure to be
> greek or Latin loan words."
>
> --Qimron, "The Hebrew of the DSS", p.117.
>
>
> Ian
>
>
> >Ian, you may not know of any Greek words in the Hebrew of the
> DSS. But does
> >Qimron? He appears to be the expert, and I noticed that you quoted him re
> >Persian but not re Greek. I don't have his book to hand, but
> apparently you
> >do. There are certainly Greek texts among the DSS, some of which
> have Hebrew
> >words in them (not least the Tetragrammaton). Are there really
> no Greek loan
> >words or structures in any of the Hebrew texts? That would be such a
> >remarkable result as to prompt a major rethink about either dating of the
> >DSS or about the extent to which Greek had penetrated Judea
> during the 1st
> >century CE.
> >
> >Peter Kirk
>
>
>
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