Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Trevor & Julie Peterson" <06peterson AT cua.edu>]

Karl wrote:
> 
> However, I noticed that, assuming that the authors and dates are as
the
> Bible claims, there was a certain amount of language change from Torah
to
> Jeremiah, but the post exilic authors returned to a style more akin to
> that found in Torah. In other words, there was a discontinuity of
language
> development. That suggests to me that while Hebrew continued to be
studied
> and spoken, it was no longer the primary language of the speakers.

Many people have observed a post-exilic discontinuity in the development
of Hebrew. Although some of this is attributable to contact with
Aramaic, it has long been shown that much of the interference comes from
dialectal difference within Hebrew itself. Some of this latter
difference is probably chronological, resulting from the attempt to
uphold an ancient literary standard that was by this point very
different from the stage of the language being spoken; some of it is
probably geographical, since not everyone would necessarily have spoken
Hebrew exactly the same in every region. The more the spoken Hebrew
dialects departed from the literary standard (and from each other), the
harder it would be for writers to keep their vernacular from bleeding
through. The same thing seems to have happened within Aramaic, BTW.
> 
> Other clues include the extensive Aramaic insertions into Daniel and
Ezra,
> where they expected the readers to understand them (contrast to 2
Kings
> 18:26),

The Aramaic in Daniel and Ezra is still largely a mystery. It's hard to
say where they were written, or who was intended to understand them. It
also seems that we would have to say equally (or more so) that the
readers were expected to understand Hebrew. One possible explanation
would be that everyone was speaking Aramaic but still able to understand
Hebrew for its religious value, but it's also possible that they were
genuinely bilingual--perhaps more than possible, since they were
obviously a culture subject to another that imposed an official language
on them. (Witness Hispanic Americans who can speak both English and
Spanish fluently.)

> and the example of Esther 2:1 where the author inserted the
> Aramaic term GZR for the Hebrew XQQ (how many more are there like
that?),

Again, this sort of interference can take place just because two
languages are in close contact, but that doesn't mean they didn't speak
Hebrew. The infusion of French loans into English that came with the
Norman conquest does not mean that English became only a literary
language. This influence applied across the board in English, but the
language is no less living today.

> as well as the historical situation of the people having been
scattered in
> an Aramaic millieu, all point to Hebrew having become the scholars'
> language and the language of religion (temple and synagog), official
> documents and coins that the common people could understand, but that
the
> common language for everyday use was Aramaic.

Again, I would point to any number of minority languages that are
preserved to varying degrees by the rank and file of their native
speakers. Spanish in the U.S. is a good example, because it shows that a
language can remain fully active while in a cultural situation where
another language is standard. Even a language as obscure as Syriac is
not just a liturgical language today but also a kitchen language,
meaning that it is still spoken in the homes of Syrian Christians.

> When Paul spoke to the crowd
> in Acts 22:2, the Hebrew language was specifically mentioned whereas
times
> when Aramaic was spoken the language was not an issue, again a clue
that
> Hebrew was then the scholars' language.

The issue in this scenario was that he did not speak in Greek (which
probably was the norm when Gentiles were around). I don't know that we
can say much about Hebrew vs. Aramaic from this.

You might want to do some reading on this subject. It has been
extensively discussed, and I think there's quite a bit of evidence
suggesting that Hebrew actually was a spoken language, side-by-side with
Aramaic.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics