Biblical Hebrew Forum

[K Randolph <kwrandolph AT gmail.com>]

Barry:

On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 7:51 PM, Barry <nebarry AT verizon.net> wrote:

Does Biblical Hebrew essentially become a literary language, like Latin
and Greek after a certain period, so that the "koine" continues the
process of change, but everybody when writing attempts to conform to a
particular standard? Or is there not enough extra-biblical Hebrew to
confirm this?

There’s almost no extra-Biblical Hebrew that can be positively verified from the period before the Babylonian Exile.

There are some letters that are possibly from that period, possibly from as late as the time of Nehemiah.

Even from within Biblical post-Babylonian Exile writings, there are clues that indicate that those Jews who returned to Judea were more at home in Aramaic than Hebrew, making Hebrew like Latin, a literary language.

Mishnaic Hebrew differed significantly from Biblical Hebrew in both grammar and vocabulary, therefore its evidence has little bearing on Biblical Hebrew.

--
N.E. Barry Hofstetter

Karl W. Randolph.