Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jack Kilmon" <jkilmon AT historian.net>]

-----
______________________________________________
}OTDb) vh yl )rO(z yx) }ylh }m dxl }OTDb(D )mkD

Dakma dabadton l'chad min haleyn achi zoreh ly haw abadton

Jack Kilmon
San Marcos, Tx
jkilmon AT historian.net

http://www.historian.net

sharing a meal for free.
http://www.thehungersite.com/




----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Penner" <pennerkm AT mcmaster.ca>
To: "'Jack Kilmon'" <jkilmon AT historian.net>; "'Karl Randolph'"
<kwrandolph AT email.com>; "'Hebrew'" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 9:50 AM
Subject: RE: [b-hebrew] When did Hebrew cease to be a commonly spoken
language?


> Jack wrote:
> > ALL of the Semitic inscriptions on all of the catalogued
> > ossuaria are in Aramaic.
> > The language commonly spoken will be the language commonly
> > misspelled or grammatically incorrect on ossuaria, ostraca,
> > graffiti, and that is nearly exclusively Aramaic.
>
> I agree that Aramaic was the most commonly spoken language at that time
and
> place.
> However (I expect you agree, Jack), this does not mean that Hebrew was not
a
> commonly spoken language as well. As Trevor notes, bilingualism is likely.
> I'd be interested to know how much of the graffiti does not consist of
> personal names. The Bar Kokhba documents abundantly attest Aramaic names
> (Bar- rather than Ben-) within Hebrew documents.


You are absolutely correct, Ken.  Hebrew was indeed a living and
dialect-developing language in several social pockets in and outside of
Judea.  If it were not so, we would not have so much fun with the DSS of
several centuries.  For a long time, Aramaic-invested scholars  eschewed the
suggestion of Hebrew use at all in the 2nd temple period.  Ditto for
Hebrew-invested scholars or nationalists for Aramaic.  This is well
demonstrated when Yigael Yadin showed Ben Gurion the Aramaic letters of
Shimeon bar Kochba and Ben Gurion flew off the handle because they were not
in Hebrew (They were mainly in Aramaic). Some New Testament scholars totally
invested in NT Greek get red in the face and apoplectic when I discuss the
Aramaisms of the NT and the benefit retroversion can play in resolving
variations in the Greek texts for a pericope whose oral or written source
was Aramaic.  Then there are the religious biases among "Messianic
Christians" who claim the New Testament was originally authored in Hebrew or
Aramaic (Even the Pauline Corpus). My point is that there is a great deal of
tendentiousness to this issue, even among scholars where you would not
expect agenda-driven paradigms.  As a scientist, I try to look only at the
evidence.   Tomb and amulet, graffiti and some ossuarial inscriptions are
more than just place or personal names and have been found in the Galilee,
Carmel and Northern Judea.  Aramaic ostraca and jar inscriptions from Arad,
tel Jemmeh and Tel Beersheba.

shlama amkon

Jack