Hi Peter,Good question, Ken, and one for which I admit I do not really have a good answer. I think perhaps I should have written that this was the general impression I had gained from the recent discussions on this list, including Jack's claim that "ALL of the Semitic inscriptions on all of the catalogued ossuaria are in Aramaic" (in a posting on 14 June which needs modifying in view of the evidence that the James Ossuary which he cites is a forgery). I would expect such inscriptions in general to be in a more official language rather than a street language. I was also thinking in terms of such articles as Randall Buth's "Language Use in the First Century: Spoken Hebrew in a Trilingual Society in the Time of Jesus", Journal of Translation and Textlinguistics Vol. 5 No. 4 (1992): 298–312. (This appears to be an updated version, or perhaps just a reissue, of an article which Michael cited.) But, as Buth points out, it is surely more correct to say that Greek, rather than Aramaic, was used for official non-religious purposes during the Hellenistic period including the first century CE. Yet Buth's evidence, while not confirming the idea which I put forward, is also radically contradictory to the conclusions of C. Rabin and of Karl. But then I see that Michael has moved this discussion forward in a helpful direction.
Could you tell us on what evidence you base your view that Hebrew was the
street language and Aramaic the official/erudite language in second temple
Judea?
W. Chomsky does argue for this view in "What was the Jewish vernacular
during the Second Commonwealth?" JQR 42 (1951/2) 193-212, but the more
rigorous survey of the evidence for the use of Hebrew and Aramaic in the
first century CE by C. Rabin points to the conclusion Karl expressed: Hebrew
was a high-status language, and Aramaic was "a means of communication, no
more" ("Hebrew and Aramaic in the First Century," in S. Safrai/M. Stern,
[edd.], _The Jewish People in the First Century_, II, [Assen, 1976],
1007-1039, page 1032).
Ken Penner, M.C.S. (Biblical Languages, Greek Focus), M.A. (Hebrew Poetry)
Ph.D. (cand.), McMaster University
pennerkm AT mcmaster.ca
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