Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

Dear Ken:

I don’t think anyone would argue that no one 
spoke Hebrew during the late Second Temple 
era, rather its use was restricted to an 
educated elite who did not use it in their 
everyday life. An example would be in Acts 
22:2 where it mentions that Paul, as an 
educated Jew, spoke in Hebrew, which had its 
effect in quieting the crowd.

I can think of two more recent examples of the 
same pattern: up until a few centuries ago, it 
was the sign of an educated man that he could 
speak in Latin, and there are some even today, 
though I expect there are no more than a few 
thousand people can speak it fluently. In this 
regard, Latin is still a living language. But 
for over a thousand years, nobody expected to 
be able to go out and buy his vegetables in 
the market speaking Latin. Similarly, in China 
up to the 1920s, the language of court and 
high literature was a variety of Chinese that 
had not been spoken for close to two 
millennia. It was the sign of an educated 
Chinese to be fluent, speaking as well as 
writing, in that archaic Chinese, but like 
Latin, nobody expected to buy in the market 
using that dialect.

The linguistic picture of Judea and Samaria 
that I get is that of an educated elite who 
knew and could speak Hebrew, the majority of 
the common people knew a smattering of Hebrew 
to a greater or lesser degree (after all, it 
was the language of religion) but most of them 
spoke Aramaic as their mother tongue. Jews in 
the Diaspora mostly spoke Greek and/or 
whatever local language was spoken where they 
lived. 

There was a wide variety of Greek knowledge. 
Of the writers of the New Testament, Luke, an 
educated man of the Diaspora, wrote in almost 
classical Greek, while John wrote about as 
close as one could get to Greek words on an 
Aramaic grammar. Peter, as a rude fisherman,  
knew Greek but apparently was never 
comfortable in it. How well did he know 
Hebrew?

In conclusion, while almost everyone knew at 
least a smattering of Hebrew, only few spoke 
it fluently, and if one wanted to buy 
something in the market, he ought to know 
either Aramaic or Greek.

Karl W. Randolph.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Penner" <pennerkm AT mcmaster.ca>

> To voice my agreement with Harold on the point of languages in use in the
> first century, the presence of non-literary Hebrew notes among the Dead Sea
> Scrolls (besides the Qumran DSS), in conjunction with Segal's proofs in _A
> Grammar of Mishnaic Hebrew_ should leave no doubt that Hebrew was a spoken
> language at the time. 
> Opinions to the contrary are the remnant of scholarship undertaken before
> Segal's grammar (1927) and before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (c.
> 50 years ago), as I argue in a presentation to the CSBS last year,
> http://s91279732.onlinehome.us/papers/hebrais
> 
> Ken Penner, McMaster/DSS
> Dead Sea Scrolls scholars' list owner,
> http://mailman.McMaster.CA/mailman/listinfo/g-megillot
> 
> > "Jews were probably not speaking Hebrew in the first 
> > century," said Rabbi
> > Ismar Schorsch, chancellor of the Jewish Theological 
> > Seminary. "They were speaking Aramaic."
> 
> _______________________________________________
> b-hebrew mailing list
> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew

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