Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Yitzhak Sapir" <yitzhaksapir AT gmail.com>]

On 6/29/06, Dave Washburn wrote:

> Actually, it does have a bearing.  The most common claim made by those
> who reject the historicity of certain people, places and events is that the
> texts are "late."  Using that basis, comparison to cognate languages such
> as Ugaritic and Akkadian, and sometimes even Aramaic and Moabite,
> becomes an implicit or explicit comparison of "early" languages versus the
> "late" Hebrew, and virtually all differences between Hebrew and its cognates
> are explained this way.

Can you:

1) Give an example of such scholars who use the "late" date of the Bible to
make linguistic conclusions on the similarity of Hebrew, Aramaic, Moabite,
Ugaritic, and Akkadian?

2) Explain how come this conclusion -- that Hebrew was a development of
Canaanite -- came to be accepted in a time when it was the scholarly
consensus that the Patriarchal narratives were historical?

3) Give an example of specific linguistic phenomena that could be understood
as ancient and prior/concurrent with such languages as Ugaritic or Amarna
Canaanite?

Thanks,
Yitzhak Sapir
http://toldot.blogspot.com