Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peter.r.kirk AT ntlworld.com>]

Ken Penner wrote:

> 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.
>
> Ken Penner, McMaster/DSS
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PennerThesis
>
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>  
On this point, note that BAR = "son" is attested as an Aramaic loan word 
into Hebrew already in the time that the later biblical books were 
written. Psalm 2:12 is controversial, but Proverbs 31:2 (three times) is 
certain, in a context which may well reflect colloquial usage. So use of 
BAR rather than BEN is not good evidence that an ossuary is Aramaic 
rather than Hebrew; BAR may simply have been the colloquial Hebrew usage 
of the time.

--
Peter Kirk
peter.r.kirk AT ntlworld.com
http://web.onetel.net.uk/~peterkirk/