Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Joseph:

On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 2:09 PM, Joseph Roberts 
<josephroberts3 AT gmail.com>wrote:

> I was reading a commentary on the Book of Daniel and how there are
> instruments whose names are of Greek origin mentioned in a couple of the
> verses. What I am wondering has anyone done a comprehensive survey of
> foreign words adopted into Biblical Hebrew. What I am most interested in
> finding if these words create an anachronism as far as when the book was
> written and when the book claims to be written.
> -Joseph Roberts
>
> First of all, those are words found in Aramaic, not Hebrew.

After all the intervening millennia, is it even possible to track all the
foreign loan words, and even which way the loaning went? Do we even know the
extent of ancient cultural contacts that would lead to linguistic loaning?
Even from the extent records, we find that Greeks were going throughout the
eastern Mediterranean with their culture (including musical instruments)
even before Daniel.

A couple of words come to my mind: HPL+Y which I suspect came into Hebrew
through Philistine, meaning “heavily armed soldier” and PRDS “garden (of
pleasure)” from Persian (there is no reason to assume that 10th century
Solomon couldn’t have known about the concept and imported it and its term
to Hebrew).

No, these words are not evidences of anachronism, rather signposts of early
cultural contact.

Karl W. Randolph.