Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Uri Hurwitz <uhurwitz AT yahoo.com>]

    Dear Rolf,  
    
   Let me briefly revisit  pre-exilic extra-biblical Hebrew inscriptions: the 
Yabneh-Yam document, the Lachish and Arad letters, and many others are 
contemporary witnesses of Hebrew the way it was used.  Naturally it would 
have been better if more was available, but given the material as it exists 
so far, it is  indispensable evidence about  the  living language. As is well 
known, much significant, paleographic, historical and religious knowledge is 
derived from this corpus, modest as it may be. It is vital, and does not 
deserve a dismissive attitude.

  For comparison let us look at the Mesha Stella. This thirty three or four 
line inscription served for decades as practically the only source for 
Moabite. Nobody complained about the paucity of evidence in this case..

  The Heb. inscriptions are therefore a legitimate part of the discussion 
whether or not one can find indications of Mishnaic usage at that stage of 
the language. Let us keep in mind that the argument is not whether Qohelet 
was written in biblical Heb.or not, but whether there are in the book markers 
of  later development of the language, in contrast to  what most consider  
earlier books. The very high usage of "she..." 67 times, compared  with  89 
"asher" alone points clearly to its late date.

  Comparisons with Phoenician, Ugaritic or Akkadian  are always important but 
really of much lesser relevance here, for the the simple reason that one 
needs to compare first diverse linguistic elements in the language under 
discussion, in this case Hebrew.

    And to introduce a totally different point: Yes, we are discussing words, 
but is it methodically right to ignore the content which the words form?  
    
     In this case we have the evidence of dialogue, or direct speech, with 
which authors of many texts in HB books embellished  their narrative, such as 
"Am I my brother's keeper?" 
    This was done for various reasons, but the overriding one was to 
introduce the drama of live conversation in a style familiar and natural to 
the audiences. None of the markers of Late Hebrew can be found there.

   Regards,

  Uri Hurwitz