Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Randall Buth <randallbuth AT gmail.com>]

> Karl:
> > While I haven’t done an academic study on the subject, I have
> > noticed a pattern that I have also seen among children of immigrants who
> > still speak their parents’ languages. I noticed it among several language
> > groups, the same pattern, a simpler vocabulary and far less usage of
> > figures of speech. That, combined with the historical record, causes me
> to
> > conclude that those who moved to Judea under Cyrus no longer had native
> > speaking ability in Hebrew. And by extrapolation neither did those who
> > lived later as well.
>
> The methodology is flawed, but more importantly
> I don't believe the evaluation of Hebrew and challenge it for evidence.
> Some
> of the postexilic books have as rich a vocabulary as preexilic.

The challenge above seem to have been dropped from the list and/or
diverted into questions about what else besides
Zexarya, Mlaxi, Haggai, NeHemya, `ezra, and Divre-ha-yamim, should be
included in Second Temple Hebrew. Well, at least start with these.
Oh, you can add Esther, too, (And any other books that you wish to add to
LBH, SecondTemple Hebrew, or not, as you wish.)
Presumably, the pattern would continue with Qumranian Hebrew,
since it is part of the Second Temple, too, but we can leave that for now.

The challenge remains:
please document the simpler vocabulary and lack of figures of speech in
whatever you call 'Late Biblical Hebrew'.

I can give an example from the other side to help you along:
In First Temple BH we have a generic word like sefer 'book, writing, letter'.
It is used for a wide scope of written materials. From Second Temple texts
Est 9.26, 29, Neh 2.7, 2.8, 2.9, 6.5, 6.17, 6.19, 2Chr 30.1, 30.6 we have a
new word אגרת iggeret 'letter' that has entered the language and taken over
a PART of the range of meaning of the older word 'sefer'. In that sense the
language has become richer. Cf. Neh 7.5, 8.1, 8.3, 8.5, 8.8, 8.18, 9.3, 9.23,
13.1, where sefer is still used, but not for 'letter'.
This looks exactly like the natural development of a language.

Randall Buth


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