Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>]

I was talking about b-hebrew being or not being a dead language. I  
know nothing about Mishnaic Hebrew or whether it was a spoken natural  
language or not.

James Christian

Quoting 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
> Biblical Language Center
> Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life
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