Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

Kimmo
katav
> I hope this is not too off-topic for the list.
>
> One of the most interesting (to me) threads over the last year has been
Randall Buth and Jack Kilmon's debate on the status of Hebrew and Aramaic
around 1st and 2nd centuries CE. At the time I was unable to participate, but
if I may reopen (and somewhat broaden) the question, I would be very
interested in how they see the sociolinguistic situation and its development
in the second temple period and some time beyond (say 5th century BCE to 3rd
century CE) in Israel. Who and in what situations would use the following
languages:
>- High Hebrew
>- Low Hebrew
>- Aramaic
>- Greek
>- Latin
>(I am not sure if Jack Kilmon makes a distinction between high Hebrew and low
Hebrew as Randall Buth does).
>
> Contributions also from other list members is, of course, welcome.
>
> Kimmo Huovila
>

well, "High Hebrew" is BH, since BH includes Second Temple BH. So as long
as High Hebrew is included in the discussion I would include it on the list.
Its relation to Low Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek are part of its 
sociolinguistics.

The question is interesting when one starts to ask who would use what, where.
Our evidence has grown considerably over the last 100 years, though
the holes in
our hard data remain 'huge'. for example, in the Galilee, of the hundreds of
inscriptions, ostraca, etc., for the first-second century, we have virtually
nothing that distinguishes Aramaic and Hebrew in the Galilee.
(There is 1 [one] Aramaic text, and there are several other texts with persons
named in Hebrew, [like ha-betshani 'from Skythopolis']. In fact, we only have
origin names in Hebrew for the 'north', nothing in Aramaic. )

One known genre was 'Jewish story parable'. All our records of the several
thousand of these are in LOW Hebrew. However, one may ask the question,
how would a LOW Hebrew parable be written up in a first century document?
We have texts like 1Mac, Qumran, and the presumed background to Josephus
War to consider. Qumran regularly and apparantly 1Mac use High Hebrew.
So would a LH parable in a High Hebrew document be adapted into the higher
register? We have a very little bit of evidence in the gospels that
suggests, Yes.


-- 
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicallanguagecenter.com
Biblical Language Center
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