Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Herman Meester" <crazymulgogi AT gmail.com>
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Herman Meester <crazymulgogi AT gmail.com>
> 
> Dear Karl,
> 
> What I'm usually working on is midrashim and other rabbinic
> literature, so I'm not an expert on biblical Hebrew. Then, I'm just a
> student. However, I might add the following comments to what you
> stated, for which, of course, I thank you:
> 
> 2005/11/18, Karl Randolph <kwrandolph AT email.com>:
> > Herman:
> 
> (...) I see that after the Babylonian
> > Captivity there was a very different Hebrew than was before
> 
> What do you mean when you say "there" was? The Hebrew spoken by the
> people who had not been taken to Babylon didn't suddenly show a major
> change compared to what it had been like before. They just continued
> to speak the language they spoke, and in that respect they had nothing
> to do with the people that did go forcibly to Mesopotamia.
> 
Jeremiah tells us that those who were not forcibly taken to 
Babylon all left and fled to Egypt. And those who did not 
want to go were forced to go by the majority. Hence there 
were no resident Hebrew speakers when two generations 
later the "returnees" came back from Babylon. Further, 
documents from Jewish centers in Egypt were in Aramaic.

The rest of your examples are not proof, as in 
documentation. All I claim is that there is evidence that 
points both ways, neither side having enough evidence 
to convince the other side. I personally lean towards one 
side, you are convinced of the other. I have never claimed 
that Hebrew was not a spoken language, just that the 
evidence that I know of indicates that it was not a natively 
spoken language. There's a difference between the two.

Karl W. Randolph.

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