Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Ken Penner" <ken.penner AT acadiau.ca>]

In response to Dave's position: 

> Again, I suggest that the DSS tell us nothing about Hebrew as 
> a common language of the era.

The official publication of the DSS would suggest they do: E. Qimron, "The 
Language," Qumrân Cave 4.V: Miq?at Ma?ase Ha-Torah (DJD 10; Clarendon: 
Oxford, 1994), 78-80.

Also, Mark Smith examined the time reference of the waw-consecutive verbs in 
a broad selection of Qumran texts (Pesharim, Rule of the Community, Rule of 
the Congregation, Rule of Benedictions, War Scroll, Temple Scroll, and 
Halakhic Letter). He concluded that two usages of tenses (literary and 
spoken) existed in both Biblical and Qumran Hebrew: the literary form 
preserved the use of the (past) waw-consecutive, and the spoken form 
discarded it.  (M. Smith, The Origins and Development of the Waw-Consecutive; 
"Converted and Unconverted Perfect and Imperfect Forms in the Literature of 
Qumran," BASOR 284 (1991):1-16; and "4Q462: A Preliminary Edition," Revue de 
Qumrân 15 (1991-2): 55-77.)

Ken

Ken M. Penner, Ph.D. (McMaster)
Acadia/Greek&Hebrew
Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic vocabulary memorization software: 
http://purl.org/net/kmpenner/flash