Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] exodus, dating of linguistics

b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
  • To: "Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] exodus, dating of linguistics
  • Date: Wed, 02 Jun 2004 18:41:23 -0500


----- Original Message -----
From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>

>
>
> Well, it would be interesting to see the details and the evidence given.
> Yes, the apostle Peter's Galilean accent was recognised in Jerusalem in
> the 1st century CE, but a recognisable difference of accent may go along
> with an almost identical literary style.
>
I did notice a difference. Apparently Galileean Aramaic had more of the Taus
transliterated as taus in Greek instead of Judean Aramaic they were almost
universally
thetas, similarly Peh was pi instead of phi. Since pronunciation changes
usually take
place in the population and/or cultural centers first, and later in the
countryside,
that suggests to me that there was a pronunciation change occuring during the
first
century.
>
> I continue to reject this conclusion. Firstly, the premise is not true
> as there are differences in style and language. But even if it were
> true, there is nothing to stop skilled authors in later centuries and
> quite different places from deliberately mimicking the style of the
> earlier books. To show this, consider that a skilled writer in America
> could today produce texts which are stylistically identical to
> Shakespeare (I don't say with the same artistic merit), but that does
> not prove that they were written in 16th-17th century England.
>
That is just what I notice in Hebrew: the pre-Galut Babel texts, like Isaiah,
Torah,
Proverbs, Jeremiah being the last one, tended to have a more complex literary
style than
the post Galut texts like Kings, Chronicles, Nehemiah, even Ezra. The post
Galut writers
did not have the same facility with Hebrew language, possibly because they
were not as
fluent in the language (which would be the case if those who returned from
Babel tended
to speak Aramaic at home and on the street, reserving Hebrew for religion,
government
and official records). The later writers copied the earlier style, in fact,
were closer
to the style found in the Torah (the earliest Hebrew texts that survive) than
the
latter, pre-Galut writers.

Karl W. Randolph.
>
> --
> Peter Kirk
> peter AT qaya.org (personal)
> peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
> http://www.qaya.org/
--
___________________________________________________________
Sign-up for Ads Free at Mail.com
http://promo.mail.com/adsfreejump.htm





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page