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  • From: Rolf Furuli <furuli AT online.no>
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Aramaic to Hebrew language switch?
  • Date: Fri, 3 Sep 2010 17:29:02 +0200

Dear Jack,

Old Aramaic is witnessed from around 900 and Hebrew from 1 100 B.C.E. Between these dates and the 17th century B.C.E. there are 800 and 600 years respectively. From the area where we later find the West Semitic languages we have almost nothing that can tell us what the situation regarding languages was during all these years. And please note, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

When discussing the origin of Hebrew and Aramaic, an important question is: "What can be subsumed under "Hebrew," and what can be subsumed under "Aramaic"? For example, the Baalam text from Deir Alla from the 8th or 9th century have several forms resembling biblical Aramaic and other forms resembling biblical Hebrew and Moabite. Can we draw any conclusions from these linguistic characteristics regarding the origin and development of Hebrew, Aramaic, or Moabite? Absolutely not! We simply do not know if the scribe was responsible for some of the mentioned characteristics, and we do not know if a small or big group used such a language. And further, we do not know whether other groups used a language which to a great extent or in part resembled biblical Hebrew or biblical Aramaic. To say that the few words from Kirbet Keifaya "*clearly* (my emphasis) shows Hebrew in the mid 11th to late 10th centuries was still formative" is a very bold statement indeed. Except for hypotheses and speculations that the people whose descendants became the nation of Israel, adopted their language from the Canaanites, I am not aware of a single scrap of evidence excluding the possibility that small or big groups spoke a language which to a large or minor extent was similar to biblical Hebrew, and that other groups spoke a language which to a large or minor extent was similar to biblical Aramaic. I do not say that such groups existed, because I have not archaeological evidence in favor of it. But to deny the possibility is very strange to my thinking.

We find the same scientific fundamentalism in paleontology and historical geology as we find among those studying the origin of Hebrew and the Hebrews, Aramaic and the Arameans. In a Norwegian textbook for students of historical geology, we find the following very interesting account: At Kolsos outside Oslo we find about 15 layers of sediment, consisting of volcanic ash, red sediments and black sediments, all on top of each other in a particular pattern. At Sundvollen, about 50 kilometers away, we find the same sediments with the same colors with exactly the same pattern. These two groups of sediments were correlated and believed to be of the same age. Professor Brögger led an excursion with his students to Kolsos, and he found one single fossil! On the basis of this lone fossil he dated the sediments at Kolsos to be sixty million years older than those at Sundvollen! Why? Because of the fossil's theoretical place in the Geologic column, which again is based on the assumption that the theory of evolution is true. So perhaps some Cretaceous fossils are found in the Triassic after all. I say this because "the Cretaceous" and "the Triassic" are not clear-cut references. From the middle of the 19th century when the Geologic column started to be constructed, to a great extent, Cretaceous rocks were identified because they contained Cretaceous fossils, and Cretaceous fossils were identified because they were found in Cretaceous rocks. And the same was true with the Triassic. True, in some places, such as the Grand Canyon, several periods occur on top of each other. But in most places of the world this is not the case (Please note that I am not a creationist, but I simply apply the critical attitude that was so much stressed in my introductory course in to the Philosophy of Science, to areas which seldom are questioned). So, there is a lot of circular reasoning in historical geology and comparative anatomy. And the same circularity that we find in comparative anatomy do we find in comparative philology, in the comparison of ancient inscribed artifacts.

It is fun to discuss all this, but we should avoid sweeping statements that this or that is impossible. Rather we should take a more humble standpoint, being open for different possibilities.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo






The history of the first part of the second millennium B.C.E. is obscure indeed. We know that Akkadian was spoken, because cuneiform documents have been found. But we do not have a list of all the other languages that were spoken at that time. We do not have any evidence whatsoever, on the basis of which we can demonstrate that the account in Genesis 31 regarding Jacob speaking Hebrew and Laban Aramaic is history or fiction. So our standpoint must be based on faith.

I do not believe in the "argument from faith" defense of an argumentum ex silentio. Regardless of whether Jacob and Laban were actual characters or based on historical characters, I can look at the historical and chronological context of that narrative. The only historical "handle" that I can grasp is in Egypt for the Joseph Narrative in which Jacob plays a role. The internal information in that Narrative can only place the story at the end of the Egyptian 2nd Intermediate Period and the reign of Apepi, the last Hyksos Pharaoh, the mid 16th century BCE.

Placing Hebrew in the 17th to 16th century BCE is like placing Tyrannosaurus rex (a Cretaceous species) in the Triassic. In this case our "fossils" lie in the epigraphy for which we have examples throughout the Biblical and post-Biblical period with the oldest "fossil" being the Khirbet Qeiyafa inscription which clearly shows Hebrew in the mid 11th to late 10th centuries was still formative.
me epigraphy that is clearly Hebrew.







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