Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Bryant J. Williams III" <bjwvmw AT com-pair.net>]

Dear List,

Please give examples of similarities of Mishnaic to Biblical Hebrew and
differences? Basically, chapter and verse ladies and gentlemen.

Rev. Bryant J. Williams III
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "K Randolph" <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>
To: "Hebrew" <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 01, 2009 5:18 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] How Long was Hebrew a Living Language?


> Randall:
>
> I stated before I never studied Mishnaic Hebrew and don’t know it. As far as
> people being mother-tongue speakers of it, all we have are clues which
> different people interpret differently. As far as I have been told, there is
> no document that definitely states that Mishnaic Hebrew was spoken as a
> mother-tongue, nor one that denies it. Hence my statement that we are
> speculating.
>
>
> what is 'simpler' and just how much simpler is it?
> >
>
> What I noticed is not changes in the language, but changes in the literary
> style. What I noticed was that over time,  allusion was widely used along
> with a fairly extensive vocabulary, particularly in the late pre-Babylonian
> Exile books (I would put Job as late pre-Babylonian Exile from the literary
> style. Once one recognizes the style, he is only middling difficult to read
> and well within the mainstream Biblical Hebrew.).
>
> But in books written after the Exile, I find a noticeably greater percentage
> of simple, declarative statements with a smaller vocabulary. Also the
> sentence structure tends to be simpler. There appears to be deliberate
> archaicising, i.e. copying the style of Torah instead of a continuation of
> the styles of Jeremiah and Ezekiel. I haven’t made a formal study on this,
> just something that I noticed while reading.
>
>
> > Does it correspond to Mishnaic Hebrew? How often? When/why?
> >
>
> Don’t know Mishnaic Hebrew, therefore can’t answer these.
>
>
> >
> > > writings, are indicators that Aramaic, not Hebrew, was the language of
> > the
> > > street and home. These are clues just from the Bible itself.>
> >
> > This overlooks nature of the texts themselves. The Aramaic of Ezra and
> > Daniel is is used for Babl. court scenes and international correspondence.
> > In addition it is literary.
> >
> > You missed the point. The question is not the type of Aramaic used, rather
> that such extensive sections were in Aramaic in the first place. That shows
> that Daniel and Ezra expected that their readers would know and understand
> Aramaic. Particularly in the case of Ezra: if he lived in a society where
> Hebrew was the mother-tongue, then he could not make the expectation that
> his readers could read the Aramaic correspondence. But if he lived where
> almost all used Aramaic in the market and in the home, but studied and used
> Hebrew as the language of commerce, religion, law and high literature, he
> then could expect that both languages would be understood.
>
>
> >
> > Again, the result of 100 years of mishnaic scholarship has led to a
> > consensus
> > that the thesis that it "was [not] spoken as a native language spoken in
> > the
> > home and market, [and] was only a learned language for religion, legal and
> > high literature, like medieval Latin," cannot explain the data and must be
> > rejected as false.
> >
>
> What data? The only data I have seen is also consistent with the “like
> medieval Latin” understanding.
>
> “‘Consensus’ is the refuge of scoundrels” shows how much I am impressed by a
> consensus. Now I am not calling *you* a ‘scoundrel’ by that quote above, I
> am just quoting others to indicate how much ‘consensus’ impresses me.
>
>
> > Most would
> > see Qohelet as a part of a proto mishnaic Hebrew. And it certainly needs
> > to be compared and contrasted with any "simpler literary style" of Second
> > Temple BH that you mentioned above.
> >
> > I have heard that claim, but I don’t think it can be supported. While
> Proverbs (as well as much of the rest of Tanakh) is semi-poetic to poetry to
> help with mimnetics, Qohelet is mostly prose. That difference alone is
> enough to explain how an early writing feels different from another early
> writing.
>
>
> >
> > --
> > Randall Buth, PhD
> > www.biblicalulpan.org
> > randallbuth AT gmail.com
> > Biblical Language Center
> > Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life
>
>
> There are those who know Elizabethan English well enough that they could
> write modern works in Elizabethan English with only a few quirks betraying
> that they are modern works. But other than Shakespear and KJV, there are no
> Elizabethan English literary works that are widely known. Further, those
> works do not have the cachet of authority that Tanakh had for Mishnaic
> Hebrew speakers. Because the most important reason for a religious Jew of
> the second temple period to learn Hebrew was to read Tanakh, it follows that
> if he were to write Hebrew, he would try to emulate Biblical style
> (archaicism).
>
> Karl W. Randolph.
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> b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
>


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