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  • From: "Harold R. Holmyard III" <hholmyard AT ont.com>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] GDD (was not: Self-mutilation)
  • Date: Mon, 11 Oct 2004 16:19:58 -0500

Dear Dave,

Harold,
I am not interested in lists of scholar names, I thought I already mentioned
that.


HH: Here is an article that gives lots of varied evidence in favor on a widespread, ongoing spoken use of Hebrew in the first century. I cut out a bit of argumentation based on the NT that I thought was flawed. I start with the concluding words about Aramaic:
http://articles.jerusalemperspective.com/articles/DisplayArticle.aspx?ArticleID=1604


Spoken Languages in the Time of Jesus

by
Shmuel Safrai

However, the role of Aramaic in everyday life should not be exaggerated. Many scholars who admit the widespread use of Hebrew in the last few generations of the Second Temple period claim that Temple services were conducted in Aramaic. While there were a number of Aramaic words and phrases associated with the administration of the Temple and Temple area, the vast majority of references relating to Temple life reflect the use of Hebrew there. The Mishnah preserves many descriptions of various aspects of everyday life in the Temple, including statements of Temple officials which almost always are in Hebrew. Moreover, to date all of the inscriptions found in the Temple area are written in Hebrew, except for two Greek inscriptions, originally part of a balustrade surrounding the inner Temple, which warned Gentiles not to go beyond that point.

Tannaic and amoraic sources state that it was customary in the synagogue to translate the readings from the Torah and the Prophets into Aramaic. Rendering the Scriptures into Aramaic offered an opportunity to introduce into the readings elements of the Oral Torah in popular form. This was done for the benefit of religiously uneducated people who may not have completely understood Biblical Hebrew. One rabbinic source explicitly states: "Šand he translates [into Aramaic] so that the rest of the people, and the women and children, will understand it" (Tractate Soferim 18:4).

However, the custom of translating the readings of the Torah and Prophets into Aramaic is not mentioned in any source before approximately 140 C.E. Sources from the second Temple period and the era immediately following the destruction of the Temple do not reflect this custom. The phenomenon of sages understanding Biblical Hebrew while the rest of the population required a translation is the reality of a later period and was not the situation during the first century C.E.

Mishnaic Hebrew

Either Hebrew or Aramaic was used in the synagogue or at other communal gatherings, but there are a number of questions concerning the relationship of these two languages in the land of Israel. The Torah and Prophets were undoubtedly read in Hebrew, as were prayers, but what was the language of Torah instruction in the synagogue? In what language did people speak in the marketplace and within the family circle? In which tongue did the sages address their students? Was there a difference between Judea and Galilee?

Most scholars since the beginning of the nineteenth century have concluded that Aramaic was the spoken language of the land of Israel during the Second Temple period. Even when scribes of that period or later attest that they wrote or transmitted traditions in Hebrew, scholars have persisted in claiming that this "Hebrew" was actually some type of Aramaic dialect then prevalent among the Jews of the land. It has even been claimed that the Hebrew in which the Mishnah was written was an artificial language of the bet midrash, house of study, which was a translation from Aramaic, or at the very least heavily influenced by Aramaic.

However, some seventy years ago a number of Jewish scholars in Palestine (later the State of Israel) began to see that the Hebrew of the Mishnah had been a living and vibrant language, spoken in the house of study, synagogue, on the street and at home. Mishnaic Hebrew does not deal only with matters of religion, but mentions, for instance, the names of dozens of implements used at the time, and records thousands of events and sayings about mundane, secular aspects of life.

Other studies have shown that Mishnaic Hebrew is significantly different from Biblical Hebrew in vocabulary, grammar and syntax. As the mid-third-century B.C.E. sage Rabbi Yochanan put it: "The language of the Torah unto itself, the language of the sages unto itself" (Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah 58b). Mishnaic Hebrew was an independent dialect and existed together with Biblical Hebrew, the latter being the language in which the Torah was read, the former the language of conversation, prayer and the Oral Torah. Mishnaic Hebrew differs from Biblical Hebrew, but not because it was translated from Aramaic as some scholars have thought. Rather it is the result of independent linguistic and historical developments related to the Hebrew language itself in the Second Temple period.

Samaritan commentaries and translations of the Scriptures have preserved traces of Mishnaic Hebrew. The language of Christians in the land of Israel, particularly those living in the southern part of the land, also shows the impact of Mishnaic Hebrew. These Christians continued to write in Aramaic until at least the sixth century, and their Aramaic was greatly influenced by Mishnaic Hebrew, but not at all by Biblical Hebrew.

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the documents from the period of the Bar-Kochba revolt (132-135 C.E.) conclusively settled the question of whether Mishnaic Hebrew had been an artificial or a living language. Hymns, prayers and biblical works written in Hebrew were discovered, as well as documents composed in the Mishnaic Hebrew dialect. Among them were letters containing Hebrew slang and abbreviated Hebrew forms characteristic of everyday speech. These discoveries prompted the biblical scholar J.T. Milik to conclude:

"The thesis of such scholars as Segal, Ben-Yehuda and Klausner that Mishnaic Hebrew was a language spoken by the population of Judea in the Persian and Græco-Roman periods can no longer be considered an assumption, but rather an established fact" (Discoveries in the Judaean Desert [Oxford University Press, 1961], 2:70).

Rabbinic Literature

When the Jewish writers of the Second Temple period referred to Hebrew, they meant Hebrew and not Aramaic. They did not confuse the two languages, but distinguished quite clearly between Hebrew and Aramaic, referring to the latter either as "Aramaic," "targum" or "Syriac" (sursit).

The sages also clearly differentiated between the Hebrew and Aramaic sections of the Bible. The Mishnah states:

The Aramaic passages in Ezra and Daniel render the hands unclean. If any of these passages were written in Hebrew, or if passages from the Hebrew Scriptures were written in Aramaic Š they do not render the hands unclean. (Mishnah, Yadayim 4:5)

Rabbi Yochanan of Beth Guvrin is likewise quite clear in distinguishing among different languages:

There are four languages which are fitting to be used by all. And they are: Greek for song, Latin for combat, Aramaic for dirges and Hebrew for conversation. (Jerusalem Talmud, Megillah 71b)

The Tosefta gives a further rabbinic ruling:

One cannot fulfill the obligation of reading from the Torah scroll unless the text is written in square script in Hebrew and in a book [some manuscripts read "on parchment"] and in ink. (Tosefta, Megillah 2:6)

In other words, the Torah scroll must be written in square Hebrew script and not in the old archaic Hebrew script, nor in Aramaic.

In Midrash Tanhuma we again find an example of the distinction the sages made between Hebrew and Aramaic:

Rabbi Yehudah ha-Levi son of Shalom [said]: "In Hebrew it is called yayin, wine and in Aramaic hamar, wine." (Shemini 5 [ed. Buber, p. 13b])

The Writings of Josephus

Josephus' references to the "language of the Hebrews" also indicates the Hebrew language. In his introduction to The Jewish Antiquities he states: "For it [his book] will embrace our entire ancient history and political constitution, translated from the Hebrew records" (Antiquities 1:5). The Hebrew records he refers to are the Bible.

In his discussion of creation and the Sabbath he states: "For which reason we also pass this day in repose from toil and call it Sabbath, a word which in the Hebrew language means 'rest'" (Antiquities 1:33). This makes sense only if Hebrew and not Aramaic is intended because in Aramaic the root n-u-h, rather than sh-b-t, is used for "to rest."

II Kings 18 tells of the Assyrian general Rabshakeh's advance on Jerusalem and his attempt to persuade the beleaguered inhabitants of the city to surrender. The leaders of Jerusalem requested that he speak Aramaic and "not the language of Judea" so that the rest of the city's inhabitants would not understand (v. 26). Josephus relates the story in the following manner:

As Rabshakeh spoke these words in Hebrew, with which language he was familiar, Eliakim was afraid that the people might overhear them and be thrown into consternation, and he asked him to speak in suristi, [Syriac, i.e., Aramaic]. (Antiquities 10:8)

The language of the Jews and of the Bible is clearly Hebrew according to Josephus, while Aramaic is called Syriac, as is often the case in rabbinic literature.

In his The Jewish War, Josephus states that in order to deliver Titus' message and persuade the inhabitants of Jerusalem to surrender, he approached the walls of Jerusalem. Since Josephus wanted not only John of Gischala to understand, but also the entire population, he delivered the message in Hebrew (War 6:96). It would seem, therefore, that Hebrew was commonly spoken and understood in Jerusalem in 70 C.E.

Josephus sometimes discusses the etymology of an Aramaic word without explicitly saying that it is Aramaic. For instance, he remarks about one Aramaic word that "we learned it from the Babylonians" (Antiquities 3:156). He never once states that an Aramaic word was Hebrew. On the other hand, when speaking of the year of Jubilee, Josephus mentions that "the fiftieth year is called by the Hebrews iobelos" (Antiquities 3:282). Iobelos is a Greek transliteration of the Hebrew word yovel.

Galilee and Judea

There is an oft-repeated claim in scholarly literature that a high percentage of the Galilean population was religiously uneducated, and that the people consequently knew and used less Hebrew. Literary sources, however, provide no indication that this claim is correct.

There are a number of "anti-Galilee" statements in rabbinic literature, but one can find similar barbs directed against residents of other regions of the land. What the sources do indicate is that Galilee belonged to the accepted cultural milieu of Judaism at that time, including the world of Torah study, and that culturally and spiritually Galilee may have been closer to Jerusalem than Judea.

There is a statement in rabbinic literature that the Judeans retained the teachings of their Torah scholars because they were careful in the use of their language, while the Galileans, who were not so careful with their speech, did not retain their learning (Babylonian Talmud, Eruvin 53a-b; Jerusalem Talmud, Berachot 4d, et al.). While this saying is sometimes considered to be evidence for the dominance of Aramaic over Hebrew in the Galilee because some of the examples discussed are in Aramaic, it actually only refers to the Judeans' feeling that Galileans mispronounced the guttural letters het and 'ayin and dropped the weak letters 'alef and hey. This in no way reflects on the cultural status of Galilee, nor does it show that the use of Hebrew was less common there than in Judea or Jerusalem.

The New Testament

When Paul spoke to the Roman commander, he used Greek (Acts 21:37). When he addressed the people, however, he spoke to them "in the Hebrew language" (Acts 21:40).

Hebrew-speakers commonly referred to Jews as yisrael, Israel, in contrast to Ioudaioi, Jews used by Greek speakers and yehuda'in, Jews used by Aramaic-speakers. In literary works written in Hebrew, Jews refer to themselves as yisrael, Israel or bene yisrael, sons of Israel, while non-Jews refer to Jews using the Aramaicized yehuda'in, Jews.

When the author of the Book of Acts refers to Jews he normally uses the term Ioudaioi, Jews. However, when he relates the words of Jesus or of Peter and his companions, he has them refer to Jews as yisrael, Israel (Acts 1:6; 2:22; 2:36; 3:12; 4:10; 9:15). The author of the Book of Acts also relates that Rabban Gamaliel addressed the Sanhedrin as "Men of Israel" (5:35).

Jesus probably spoke Hebrew within the circle of his disciples, and since the thousands of parables which have survived in rabbinic literature are all in Hebrew, no doubt he likewise told his parables in Hebrew.

The view that Aramaic was the language of conversation in first-century Israel seems to be supported by the Aramaic words found in the New Testament. Many scholars have seen Jesus' words to Jairus' twelve-year-old daughter, "Talitha kumi" (Mk. 5:41), as proof that he spoke Aramaic. Yet, even if Jesus spoke to her in Hebrew, he could have said "Talitha kumi." One must not forget that many Aramaic words in various forms found their way into Hebrew in the Second Temple period. The command to "get up" kumi is the same word in Hebrew and Aramaic.

Conclusion

Hebrew was certainly the language of instruction in schools, as well as the language of prayer and Torah reading. The language of instruction in the house of study also most certainly was Hebrew, and this was likely the case regarding instruction in the synagogue. It would seem that Hebrew was spoken in the marketplaces of Jerusalem (Jerusalem Talmud, Pesahim 37d), but there is not enough information to determine whether this also was the case in other cities. It is not impossible that there were religiously uneducated people who did not understand Hebrew and were conversant only in Aramaic. There is some evidence for this linguistic phenomenon beginning in the second century C.E., but it is unlikely that such was the case in the first century.

Although the Jewish inhabitants of the land of Israel in the time of Jesus knew Aramaic and used it in their contacts with the ordinary, non-Jewish residents, Hebrew was their first or native language. It is especially clear that in enlightened circles such as those of Jesus and his disciples, Hebrew was the dominant spoken language.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard









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