Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

>>I don’t think there were any mother-tongue speakers of Mishnaic Hebrew,
>> ever. But the paucity of evidence either way does not allow us to be
>> certain. Therefore, let’s not argue the point. (Emotionally, I’d like to
>> agree with you, but scholastic honesty does not allow me to.)
>>
>
>
>I think this just about sums up my sentiments as well. On the one
>hand, being a believer, I would like to accept everything
>unquestionable that Hebrew is a living language and that we can be
>100% sure of the meaning of the original. This would bolster my faith
>immensely. On the other hand, I was raised a scientist and not as a
>Christian or as a Jew and so I have to take control of my emotions and
>analyse things as objectively as I can.

So DeCartian! But your sentiments shouldn't be evidence either. The theory
of an 'artificial Mishnaic Hebrew' was the wishful thinking of Avraham Geiger,
1845. It was refuted, linguistically, in 1908 by M. Segal. Mishnaic
Hebrew scholars today, those who have sifted the data, and compared
both consistency and innovation through out the Second Temple,
are unanimous in there having existed a mishnaic Hebrew speaking
people group(s). So "scientifically", one should work with
mishnaic Hebrew and at least account for the data. And as the data
has even been growing over the last 100 years, the 'sentiments' of
some scholars have gradually been erroded and Geiger's refutation
has become clearer and more widely recognized outside mishnaic
Hebrew circles. I suppose you could count Klaus Beyer as a diehard
Geigerian, but he is not a mishnaic Hebrew scholar, and he accepted
1st century living Phoenician simply on the grounds that someone
in the first century mentioned that it existed! But he left no stone
unturned for explaining how one might not be sure of all the mishnaic
evidence, and so concluded that it wasn't.

     Oh yes, the word 'scientifically' doesn't fit 100%.
This is history, where people deal in probabilities and consistencies,
not in repeatable, verifiable, experiments.

I"ll let others fill in details.

Randall Buth


-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicalulpan.org
randallbuth AT gmail.com
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