Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ken Penner" <pennerkm AT mcmaster.ca>]

Thank you, Matthew, for a very useful summary.

I agree with your conclusions, but I have a few questions regarding details:

1. How do you distinguish between LBH and MH? (This is not a rhetorical
question; I do want to know the method.) You listed as
LBH: DSS (including Copper Scroll and 4QMMT), Ben Sira, 1Macc, Formal
written materials and virtually all literary
Texts.
And MH: Cave of Letters, Cave of Horrors, Murabba'at, ABBA.

2. What do you mean by 1 Maccabees being "preserved" in Hebrew?

3. Why do you say Pharisees used Hebrew for their oral traditions? How could
one know this?

4. I am hesitant to think of Targumim as simply "repositories of exegetical
traditions" rather than primarily translations. Too much of them read as
very direct translation, with very little exegesis.

The "Second Temple" period is very long, and I would shy away from saying
"virtually all" Judean literature was Hebrew in this period. Where do you
fit the (Aramaic) Enochic literature and the New Jerusalem texts? Enoch at
least seems hugely popular, and NJ was found in surprisingly large numbers
in most Qumran caves. Are these exceptional because of provenance (Galilee,
perhaps?)?

Ken

> 1) Hebrew certainly was vibrantly alive as a literary
> language during the second temple period, particularly
> in Judea.
> 
> 2) Hebrew was also certainly utilized by some among
> the scholarly and upper classes, and even among the
> less-learned as a spoken language.  Again,
> particularly in Judea.
> 
> 3) In the Galilee, Aramaic was probably the most
> common tongue to converse in, except when religious
> discourse was going on.