Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

>> …. The theory
>> of an 'artificial Mishnaic Hebrew' was the wishful thinking of Avraham
>> Geiger,
>> 1845.

> Who on this list advocates an ‘artificial Mishnaic Hebrew’?
> What do *you* mean by that?

Geiger argued that mishnaic Hebrew was not a language spoken by
'the people', that is as a mothertongue that anyone grew up with. Instead,
he argued that it was a language created by the rabbis who
naturally spoke Aramaic and tried to make it into a Hebrew.

And I called it 'wishful thinking', because it was what Geiger wanted.
He wanted to separate Judaism from the authority of the rabbis, and
one of the ways to do that was to argue that the very medium of their
discussions was artificial, and that artificiality was intended to go hand
in hand with the artificiality of their halachic decisions. And if the early
rabbinic halacha could be characterized as artificial, it would be that
much easier to change and rewrite the halacha in Geiger's own day.
Geiger was one of the founders of Reformed Judaism.

Anyway, Geiger's lingiusitcs have mispredicted, item after item,
(something bad for scientific theories) and since Segal,
mishnaic Hebrew studies have been on a more linguistically
sound track where the language is viewed as a natural development
from within the dialectS of biblical Hebrew. And as all languages
develop, there are internal transformations as well as outside
influences. Mishnaic Hebrew was strongly influenced by both Aramaic
and Greek during the Second Temple and following. And mishnaic
Hebrew was also the 'low' (that is spoken language) of a Hebrew
diglossia during this period. The high language was 'literary Hebrew'
of which we have fine specimens in LateBiblical Hebrew and also
Dead Sea Hebrew and Ben Sira (and can see it behind 1 Maccabees
if you know what to look for).
Geiger, of course, did not have access to Qumran, and could not
study how the sectarians were able to write a 'good' classical Hebrew,
e.g., in the Temple Scroll, War, Serex ha-Yahad.
but at the same time with little unconscious marks and spellings
that reveal their own time period. This is a typical case of diglossia,
writing in one dialect, while speaking another. At Qumran we also
have the Copper Scroll, and 4QMMT that show a different Hebrew was
also known and 'underneath' the writings of the high style. These
and other documents found in the Second temple (ostraca/papyri/
leather) show unmitakable ties with the rabbinic dialect that was
first written down in 200CE and that endeavored to preserve the
words of their various teachers.

As one minor example of linguistic continuity:
(the King of Aram is speaking)
2Ki 6:11 מִ֥י מִשֶּׁלָּ֖נוּ אֶל־מֶ֥לֶךְ יִשְׂרָאֵֽל
who among us is for the king of Israel?

The dialect form 'sh-' "that"  was known in the First Temple.
Here it may be portraying 'northern' speech or foreign
speech. But it is not from Aramaic. It became bundled with
several other dialectical features that became a different
register of Hebrew, including Qohelet, 4QMMT, miscellaneous
documents and graffiti of the 2nd temple, the BarKochba
letters and tannaitic Hebrew. Geiger's theory does not explain
why the relatively rare biblical 'sh-' was chosen for the rabbis
Hebrew when they wanted to speak Hebrew, why it went through
certain changes throughout the Second Temple, and why
Qumran could write perfectly good 'high Hebrew'
(including אשר asher-) when they wanted to, but when Qumran
or the rabbis shift to sh-, a whole, consistent matrix came into play.
Geiger can't explain why a low register in a diglossia would be
invented. Typically, diglossia situations occur where one dialect
is a prestige, literary language and the other is an overlapping
spoken dialect.

So in answer to your question, I don't know who on this list
assumes an 'artificial mishnaic Hebrew', and it is actually
irrelevant in discussing the position. However, a statement like
"I don’t think there were any mother-tongue speakers of
Mishnaic Hebrew, ever." would probably qualify generically by
most who who categorize different views. As I mentioned in
the other email, the mishnaic data needs to be integrated in
the whole picture of Hebrew.

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