Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Dewayne:

On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 4:56 PM, Dewayne Dulaney
<dewayne.dulaney AT gmail.com>wrote:

>  > While the people would leave the written Hebrew text unchanged, because
> it
> > had no vowels, they would give it the Aramaic vowels as they read it.
>
> That might be the case if people stopped using Hebrew entirely, but
> clearly they didn't. You are aware that several books of the OT canon
> were written after the exile (Ezra, Nehemiah, possibly 1-2 Chronicles,
> Zechariah, Haggai, Malachi), in Hebrew, aren't you? (I accept the
> conservative dating of Daniel, which is partly in Hebrew and partly in
> Aramaic, and thus don't include it as post-exilic.)


Of course I am aware of the books that were written in Hebrew after the
Babylonian Captivity. I have repeatedly referenced them as examples by the
stylistic differences between them and those books written prior to the
captivity as evidences of people who wrote in a second language, not their
primary language. Hence I see them as evidence that Jews as a group no
longer spoke Hebrew as a mother tongue.


> Not to mention
> evidence of Hebrew usage at Qumran, Hebrew inscriptions (even at the
> Temple itself, such as famed "place of the trumpeting" inscription),
> ostraca, usage on coins by the Macabbees, etc. And while I grant you
> don't accept the Massoretes' vowel pointing as accurate, do you think
> they just made them up out of thin air? There had to be some knowledge

of Hebrew pronunciation passed down, even if imperfect, for them to
> work with.
>

How many times do I need to say of course the Masoretes did not make their
points up out of thin air? They recorded the local tradition of their time.

>
> As for Hebrew and Aramaic being totally mutually incomprehensible, I
> doubt that. They were in the same language family.


So are English and Norwegian, but without studying Norwegian, can you look
up Aftenposten or Verdens Gang on line and read it, let alone understand it
if read out loud to you? English and Norwegian are in the same language
family.

Or how about Dutch? I can read and understand a lot of written Dutch without
ever having studied it, but don’t understand it when spoken.

2 Kings 18:26–28, and Isaiah 36:11–13 clearly indicate that Hebrew and
Aramaic at that time were mutually incomprehensible. But that is no longer
so today, so what drew them closer together?


> …
> Randall is correct to use comparative linguistics the way he does.
> That you may not acknowledge it does not change the accuracy of it.
>

What I question is the accuracy of it.

>
> Dewayne Dulaney
>
> דואין דוליני
>

Karl W. Randolph.