Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Lisbeth S. Fried" <lizfried AT umich.edu>]

They were definitely using Aramaic in the time
of Hezekiah. I suggest they used it earlier, from
the time of the fall of the northern kingdom. The
newcomers would have spoken Aramaic, the lingua franca
under the Assyrians. You could check the article on
Aramaic in the Anchor Bible Dictionary. Besides,
isnt' that an Aramaic ending of "kings" in vs. 3?
liz

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Schmuel [mailto:schmuel AT bigfoot.com]
> Sent: Tue, January 15, 2002 3:20 PM
> To: Biblical Hebrew
> Subject: Aramaic "bar" in Proverbs 31
> 
> 
> Shalom Biblical Hebrew,
> 
>     Hi, though I also have questions about Psalm 2, this question 
> is about 
> Proverbs 31,
> under the assumption that it was written by Soloman, between the 
> first and 
> second
> Temple periods
> 
> Proverbs 31 1-3 -KJV
> The words of king Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him.
> What, my son? and what, the son of my womb? and what, the son of my vows?
> Give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which 
> destroyeth kings.
> 
> Clearly, contextually the verse *shouts* for the usage "son"
> 
> However, the following arguments are made that it is still
> simply the Hebrew... eg.. "purity"
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> -------------------------------------------
>   before Hezekiah, before the babylonian exile..
>      so it can't mean 'son' since they didn't use Aramaic then.
> 
> There are three places in the writings of the Rabbis that agree to that,
> in fact in one of them it explicitly addresses the problem.
> 
> Had 'bar' been in use in Hebrew at such an early period it would 
> have appeared
> in the prophetic writings, and certainly in those that were written late 
> like Jeremiah.
> 
> There is Biblical proof that Aramaic was NOT even known to the
> populous in a period well over a hundred years after Solomon.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> -----------------------------------
> 
> offhand, I don't have the supposed proof alluded to in the last one,
> tho I can likely get it..
> 
> Your opinion, on any level, of these arguments
> 
> Thank you...
> 
> 
> Schmuel AT bigfoot.com
> 
> Steven in Queens, NY :-)
> 
> Messianic_Apologetic-subscribe AT yahoogroups.com
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/
> 
> 
> ---
> You are currently subscribed to b-hebrew as: [lizfried AT umich.edu]
> To unsubscribe, forward this message to 
> $subst('Email.Unsub')
> To subscribe, send an email to join-b-hebrew AT franklin.oit.unc.edu.