Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Yitzhak Sapir <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 11/8/05, Peter Kirk wrote:
> On 08/11/2005 16:05, Yitzhak Sapir wrote:
> >There are no historical claims in the Bible that it was written
> >centuries before Ugarit. ...

If you look in the original message, "it" refers to "Biblical Hebrew",
not to the Bible.  This isn't clear from the above quote, and evidently
even most of the Bible was not written down "centuries before
Ugarit."  I think everyone will agree to that.  The earliest reference in
my history books that I found to some datable historical text in
Ugaritic is a text by Niqmaddu/Niqmahaddu, that relates him as a
contemporary of Suppiluliuma I (1370-1330), king of Mitanni, in a
treaty that he made with him.  Hence, Ugaritic was already being
written down in the 14th century.  Ugarit is mentioned by Amenhopis
III in an Amarna letter, and although this gives us no evidence that
they spoke Ugaritic at that stage, it seems unlikely that they would
have switched language at that time.  So, we already have evidence
that Ugaritic was being written, and probably spoken, in the 14th
century, probably from the early 14th century.  From the 1440 date,
this gives us already only about half a century.  An Ugaritic king list
is preserved, according to my history book, "but it is only partly
preserved, and the royal names that survive seem to be those of the
earlier kings of Ugarit to whom offerings were made or who were
invoked as part of the ancestral royal ceremonies. ...  This means
that none of the kings that reigned in Ugarit at the time when the
archives are available are listed in this text, and the line of
historically known rulers has to be reconstructed from the
documents."  So, there were early kings and continuous civilization
prior to the 14th century date, and this brings us to the 15th
century at least, where it also seems unlikely that there was a
mass language change.  Ugaritic as a language is then spoken
at best contemporary with and very likely earlier than the possible
15th century Exodus date.  The 15th century Exodus date is by
no means the best -- there are problems connecting the Exodus to
the Hyksos expulsion since the Hyksos are expelled in the 16th
century BCE, and Raamses is unlikely to have been a city name
prior to Ramesses I.  But like I said, the general lack of evidence
and the relative ambiguity of the Biblical text does not rule this
out.  It can be consistent, though other possibilities are possible.
Having dealt with the date, it is then necessary to question whether
the Torah or any Hebrew text was written down in this time.  The
Torah mentions several places and a discussion a while back
showed that the interpretation that it refers to the whole Torah is
by no means certain.  But for "Biblical Hebrew" to have been
written we don't need the whole Torah -- we need some piece
in Biblical Hebrew, even if it is one verse.  That discussion is
therefore irrelevant.  Now the question that is left is whether the
original language was Biblical Hebrew or not.  It could have been
written in Canaanite.  In fact, I don't think the Hebrew Bible never
mentions Hebrew as a "language."  It refers to the language as
"Judaean" or "language of Canaan."  So that, it's quite possible
that in the eyes of the Israelites, the Amarna Canaanite glosses
or even Ugaritic would be identified as something akin to "Old
Hebrew."

In short:
1) Ugaritic is attested as early as the 14th century BCE and since
Ugarit at that point continued a civilization from the previous centuries,
it is likely that Ugaritic was being spoken prior to the 14th century BCE.
2) It's not clear that 15th century is the date of the Exodus.
3) Even if it's so, and even if at least one part of the Torah was written
in this time, it is not clear that it would have been written in what is
identified by us as "Biblical Hebrew."  It could have been written in an
earlier stage of the language and the text slowly modified so as to
remain comprehensible to the readers.

Yitzhak Sapir