Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Jack Kilmon" <jkilmon AT historian.net>]

-----Original Message----- 
From: Randall Buth
Sent: Saturday, May 14, 2011 10:05 AM
To: Hebrew
Subject: [b-hebrew] 5th century BCE to 3rd century CE sociolinguistics 
(Buth,Kilmon)

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.

****Randall, there is nothing wrong with how "close I am" to the "raw data" 
but I am just not "close" to your interpretation of some of the "raw data." 
"High" and "Low Hebrew" appears to be a construction of your own.  Lets say 
we get to the issue. Aramaic was the spoken language of the non-literate 
population, which was MOST of the population of the 2nd Temple period. 
Where Hebrew was spoken among the literate, I said previously that I have no 
doubt there was a literate and vernacular form. Please explain how that is 
different than your "low" and "high" Hebrew and how are you dating your 
Mishnaic Hebrew as a vulgar "low"  form?

...

> 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!

**** I don't smoke anything and your starting to tick me off.

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.

*****That is speculation. You will find similar inscriptions in LATIN on 
Medieval tombs that the general population could not read.  Do you think 
grave robbers were literate?  The name is in Aramaic. Someone who call 
himself BAR Shalom rather than BEN Shalom spoke Aramaic.

This also is NOT an ossuary.

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--

****Like the grave robbers above?

but then the Aramaic part is 'artificial Aramaic' and incorrect.

****You asked the right question. Why is it bilingual?  It is also NOT an 
ossuary.

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.

****Which tells you what?  The largest number of Elephantine letters, 
written from literates in Egypt to literates in Jerusalem,  were in WHAT 
language?  They were a stream of correspondence. 100 ostraca from Tel Arad 
were not monumental, on a tomb or Biblical but requests for barley, in 
Aramaic. So also 60 odd from Beer Seba about wheat and barley and Tell 
Jemma, about barley and wine....ostraca written in the common tongue about 
staples, what I call "grocery list" epigraphy.  About 300 or so of these 
Aramaic ostraca also appeared on the antiquities market.

Again, these were not the ossuaries I mentioned because I am smoking 
something but they are a good example.

****The inscriptions on many ossuaries are oft times clumsily scrawled and 
misspelled in poor grammar in ARAMAIC as the Semitic choice and was 
apparently by family members so they could record at least the primary 
deposit of bones and subsequent family members.  These people SPOKE Aramaic 
and attempted to write it either using an exemplar ostracon or just winging 
it phonetically in a quasi-literate fashion.  When an inscription was carved 
in Aramaic by a scribal hand, probably prior to its interment, it was in 
Aramaic.

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.

****Mishnaic Hebrew developed greatly influenced by spoken Aramaic.  The 
commentaries of the Mishnah are in Aramaic (the Gemara).  I have no doubt 
that the sages of the Beyt Hillel and Shammai and the Sadducees and priests 
spoke a dialect of Hebrew among themselves but when they went home after the 
business of the day they talked to the wife and kids in Aramaic.


Jack Kilmon
San Antonio, TX


blessings
Randall Buth


--
Randall Buth, PhD
www.biblicallanguagecenter.com
Biblical Language Center
Learn Easily - Progress Further - Remember for Life
_______________________________________________
b-hebrew mailing list
b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew