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Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

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  • From: <tladatsi AT charter.net>
  • To: B-Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] QNH-BSM
  • Date: Sun, 21 May 2006 8:33:36 -0700

Herman et al.,

Whether Hebrew was dead, dying, or alive at any particular point between 500
BCE and 100 CE is really quite tangential to the to the point of my emails.
Even if Hebrew were a living, vibrant language during the time of Herodotus,
it would have been in a small and, from a Greek perspective, rather
insignificant region of their world – an obscure province of the Persian
Empire. If the Greeks were deficient in a word for hemp, why use a Hebrew
word? Why not a Sanskrit, Persian, Latin, or Aramaic word? There was not an
extensive importation of Hebrew culture or language into the Greek world
before the spread of Christianity.

That being said, Hebrew did die out as a living spoken language at some
point. It’s death was a process that lasted many centuries. The conquest of
Israel by Assyria and Judea by Babylon and the long dominance of Aramaic in
the region were factors initiating this process. Suffice it to say, it was
in decline as a living language during the Hellenistic period (the necessity
of the publication of the LXX and the adoption of the *Assyrian* alphabet for
writing Hebrew are but two small examples). To the extent that it was used
on a day to day basis, it would have been in a very geographically limited
area.

The extent to which Hebrew survived as spoken and / or written language at
any given place or time is of course much debated, including here.

https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/b-hebrew/2003-June/015607.html

--
Jack Tladatsi




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