Subject: RE: [b-hebrew] When did Hebrew cease to be a commonly spoken language?
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003 13:58:05 -0400
Hi b-hebrew,
Ken Penner wrote:
>I'd also like to see evidence for both sides: Hebrew dying out and Hebrew
>remaining an everyday spoken language.
>I recently delivered a paper to the Canadian Society of Biblical Studies on
>the question of whether the Greek words Hebrais/Hebraisti refer to Hebrew or
>Aramaic, and necessarily had to touch on the likelihood of Hebrew surviving
>as a spoken language.
Schmuel
Can the Greek word also refer to both ? ie. the family of semitic
languages...
ie .. does it have to be an either/or proposition ?
Is your paper, or a summary, available ?
There has been a lot of stuff said on this issue over on another forum, often
with
little scholarly backup, sometimes with hot air, and it would be nice to see
a
scholarly summary, including the NT usage, and the Josephus usage, and
whatever
else you have found :-)
>I'd be interested to hear how put it all together:
>
>Why are parts of Ezra and Daniel in Aramaic?
>Why and when did the Targumim appear?
>Why are there more Second Temple Aramaic inscriptions than Hebrew?
>Why is so much early Second Temple religious literature in Aramaic (the
>several parts of Enoch, Tobit, Genesis Apocryphon, New Jerusalem, etc.)?
>Why do the Maccabean coins have Hebrew rather than Aramaic?
>Why are so many more Semitic words (even those called Hebraisti) in the
>Christian scriptures Aramaic rather than Hebrew?
>Why do the Aramaic Bar Kokhba letters outnumber the Hebrew ones?
>Why is the inscription on Jesus' cross said to have been in Roman, Greek,
>and "Hebraisti", without mention of Aramaic?
>Why does a Bar Kokhba letter-writer apologize for writing in Greek rather
>than "ebraesti", without mentioning Aramaic?
>Why does Philo say the Bible was written in "Chaldean"?
>Do any ancient writers ever call Aramaic Hebrew?
Interesting list of questions :-)
>I have some hypotheses, but I'd like to hear your views first.
After you Alphonse.. most definitely, Gaston :-)
Shalom,
Steven Avery
Queens, NY
www.messiahresearch.com