Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

Ken Penner wrote:
> The question of spoken Hebrew between the Bible and the 
> Mishnah is no longer
> a real debate, since Segal's work on the Mishnah and the 
> discovery of the
> Dead Sea Scrolls (especially the Copper Scroll, 4QMMT, and the 
> Bar Kokhba
> documents). These texts show changes that are explicable as the
> continued
> development of a living language, not as an artificially revived 
> Hebraised
> Aramaic.

An ongoing discussion on ANE-list right now had covered the question,
is Mishnaic Hebrew considered today to have been a living language at
the time?  Various arguments brought up there (such as the content of 
the Bar Kokhba documents) seemed to point that Hebrew died out as a
living language by that time.  I myself don't know but am interested in
the opinions voiced either way.  See the thread: "the recording of vowels
in sacred texts" 

https://listhost.uchicago.edu/pipermail/ane/2004-November/thread.html#15298

Yitzhak Sapir