Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 18/03/2004 15:07, Polycarp66 AT aol.com wrote:

> ...
> ______________
>
> http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/newsletter/2004/mar12.html
>
> gfsomsel
>
>  
This article is full of unsubstantiated assertions, especially:

> In the Holy Land, Aramaic supplanted Hebrew as the language of the 
> people sometime between 721 BC, the year Israel's capital Samaria fell 
> to Assyrian invaders, and 500 BC, following the fall of Jerusalem to 
> Nebuchadnezzar's Babylon.


The only good evidence for widespread use of Aramaic in the land is 
about 500 years later!

Tobit is cited as evidence, but when and where was it written? If it was 
written in the setting and time of the story, it is a work of Jews 
dispersed in Aramaic speaking countries, and so was written in Aramaic 
for the same reason as much of Daniel. Or is it in fact from the 
post-Hasmonean period, when there does seem to have been increasing use 
of Aramaic in the land?

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/