Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

jack katav

>I think most languages have  written and vernacular forms and I just assume
that Randall was referring to EBH as "High Hebrew" but will wait for him to
respond.  >

Jack, this raises a question of how close you are to the raw data. There
is/was a noticeable difference between low Hebrew and high Hebrew in
the Second Temple. That is what I was referring to. Without understanding
this, all sorts of false things may be said about Hebrew. For example, many
have said that 'Hebrew was a high language like Latin in medieval Europe',
without realizing that Mishaic Hebrew was also a low language --like Vulgar
Latin in early medieval Europe.

...

>ALL of the Semitic inscriptions on all of the catalogued ossuaria are in
Aramaic.  >

People would pay a lot of money for whatever you're smoking!

One recent grave inscription discovered last year at Qiryat Shemuel,
Hadashot Arkheologiyot / ESI 122 (2010), is published online at
http://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/report_detail.asp?id=1497&mag_id=117
http://www.hadashot-esi.org.il/images//5621-7.jpg
The report presents an inscription in mishnaic Hebrew, though mentioning a
name with an Aramaic patronym:
אלכסא בר שלום ברת אלכסא
 ארור שיטלני ממקומי
(“Alexa bar Shalom berat Alexa // Cursed is the one who casts me from my 
place”)
The clear part for potential grave robbers is in mishnaic Hebrew.

Another ostracon of interest is a bilingual Hebrew--Aramaic one where the
Aramaic side is written with a non-Aramaic form:
CIIP 368a/CIJ 1352a: מרים יועזר שמעון בני יחזק בן קלון מן בני ישבאב
CIIP 368b/CIJ 1352b: מרים יועזר ושמעון בני יחזק בר קלון מן ברי ישבאב
(note: ברי instead of בני!).
Why they bothered to do both languages remains a question when it is
inconceivable that people couldn't read both/either--
but then the Aramaic part is 'artificial Aramaic' and incorrect.

anyway, in Greek-Semitic ostraca where the Semitic language is
unambiguous,
there are 9 Gk-Aram and 13 Gk-Heb.
In Semitic-only ostraca where the  language is unambiguous,
there are 25 Aramaic and 16 Hebrew.

Guido Baltes in a forthcoming article concluded in general,
"These conclusions drawn from the epigraphic material of the land of
Israel might appear disappointing at first glance, since they are
predominantly negative in essence: the language distribution within
the inscriptions and documents is too evenly divided and too diverse
to make any certain claims on geographical, functional or sociological
language peculiarities. However, it might be just this non-existence
of clear results that is the most important result of this study: Too
easily New Testament scholars have looked for simple patterns and
ready answers to explain the complexity of a reality two thousand
years separated from ours. ... Too negligently, we have separated
ourselves from the fruitful studies of our colleagues in the fields of
archeology, linguistics, and history." (the article will be in the
second volume of the Brill series Jerusalem Studies in the Synoptic
Gospels, possibly available in SF SBL.)

Any discussion of the sociolinguistics requires an accurate control of
the development of and relationship of "biblical Hebrew" and
"mishanic Hebrew". Too many, scholars and students both, write on this
subject without controlling the linguistic data.

blessings
Randall Buth


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