2. Bible & Book in the Ancient World

1. 2. Bible & Book in the Ancient World BIB586 Biblical Introduction

2. 1.0.0 Introduction "In the beginning was the world and the word was with God. Then human beings took it over. In many languages they produced a flood of words. And the world was filled with clay tablets, scrolls, books, bookcases and libraries." [Ellen van Wolde, Words become Worlds: Semantic Studies of Genesis 1-11, ix]

3. 1.0.1 Why Study Bib. Lang. 1. If you believe in the inspiration of scripture, then you value the words. 2. Translations are good, but no translation is able to convey the subtleties of language. 3. Poetry and all figures of speech rely heavily upon the sounds and meanings of the original language. 4. Literary devices and rhetorical structures cannot be accurately interpreted from a translation.

4. 1.0.1 Why Study Bib. Lang. 5. Use of commentaries that make reference to Greek and Hebrew. 6. Other Resources written in Hebrew and Greek: Lexicons, word studies, theological works, grammars, concordances, journal articles. 7. Ability to critique the opinions of others. If you do not learn Hebrew and Greek, you will forever be dependent upon the thoughts and ideas of someone else.

5. 1.0.1 Why Study Bib. Lang. 8. Enables original research. You can research questions with a concordance, lexicon, and/or computer Bible program. Some of your questions may not be answered in the standard reference works. Furthermore, all reseachers have motives that may not lead allow them to follow the same pathway that you may wish to investigate. 9. Enhances sermon and lesson preparation. Ideas will come to you from the original languages that would otherwise be unavailable.

6. 1.0.1 Why Study Bib. Lang. 10. Side benefit: Understanding of language in general. Enhances communication skill. [Lee Martin, "History of the Hebrew Language," http://earth.vol.com/~lmartin/INTRODUC.HTM, 03-03-2002]

7. 1.0.1 Why Study Bib. Lang. Old Testament Studies: Hebrew Aramaic (also Syriac) Greek Akkadian Ugaritic Latin

8. 1.0.1 Why Study Bib. Lang. New Testament Studies: Greek Hebrew Aramaic (also Syriac) Latin Coptic

9. 1.1 Hebrew: Introduction • "Most of the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew. The small residue was written in a dialect of Aramaic known as biblical Aramaic, and comprises three main pieces (Dan. 2:4b-7:28; Ezra 4:8-6:18; 7:12-26), an odd verse in the middle of Jeremiah (10:11, presumably an early gloss), and two words in Genesis (31:47; "Heap of Witness," title name given by Laban to the Mizpah stone which Jacob's clansmen set up in Gilead). The fact that the central portion of the book of Daniel is written in this dialect led ancient scholars to call it Chaldee, under the impression that this was the tongue spoken by the Jewish exiles in Chaldea (Babylonia)." [Snaith, "The Language of the Old Testament," Interpreter's Bible, CD-Rom Edition]

10. 1.1 Hebrew: Name • "In the Old Testament the language of the Hebrews is described as the "language of Canaan" (Isaiah 19:18), or the "language of Judah" (Nehemiah 13:24; Isaiah 36:11). The first occurrence of the designation "Hebrew" is in the prologue to Ben Sira, written approximately 130 B.C. The New Testament writers and Josephus used the designation "Hebrew" to refer both to Hebrew and to the locally spoken Aramaic." [Martin]

11. 1.1 Hebrew: Name • "In the literature of later antiquity, the language is usually called "the holy tongue," with reference to the biblical corpus, and the "tongue of the sages," when referring to the language of the oral tradition - that is called rabbinic or mishnaic or tannaitic Hebrew. It is here that we come across the first explicit reference to divergent literary styles." [Schramm, "Hebrew: Structural Overview," Anchor Bible Dictionary, CD-Rom Edition]

12. 1.1 Hebrew: Name • "Curiously enough, the term "Hebrew" as the in-group common reference to its language is a borrowing from Arabic, first introduced by Saadia Gaon (882-942 c.e.) in his grammatical writings (Skoss 1955). The new designation entered the Hebrew language only when Jews began to write their grammatical studies in their own language a few centuries later." [Schramm, "Hebrew: Structural Overview," Anchor Bible Dictionary, CD-Rom Edition]

13. 1.1 Hebrew: Name • "Other than as the language of ancient Phoenician colonialism, Canaanite never assumed a major role in the ancient world. Rome defeated its archrival Carthage in the west, and in the Levant Aramaic, originally used east of the Phoenician hill country, gradually spread its domain. As the language of the Jews, Hebrew was the mother tongue of only Jerusalem and its environs at the beginning of the Common Era. In the northern domains of the expanded Hasmonean Kingdom of Judea a form of Aramaic was spoken, simply because the local population

14. 1.1 Hebrew: Name carried on the speech habits of their ancestors who were converted to Judaism during the reign of John Hyrcanus I. The Idumeans to the south, who had been converted at about the same time, continued to speak their ancestral Canaanite tongue." [Schramm, "Hebrew: Structural Overview," Anchor Bible Dictionary, CD-Rom Edition]

15. 1.1 Hebrew: Name • "Hebrew probably ceased to be a living language (in the sense of a community mother tongue) around the year 200 c.e. as the result of the Bar Kokhba disaster, when the population of Judea was decimated and the survivors fled northward to the Galilee." • ". . . Aramaic which they spoke as a family language was symbiotically linked to the Hebrew they continued to use for more formal purposes." [Schramm, "Hebrew: Structural Overview," Anchor Bible Dictionary, CD-Rom Edition]

16. 1.1 Hebrew: History • Biblical Hebrew (BH) • Early Biblical Hebrew (EBH) • Late Biblical Hebrew (LBH) • Rabbinical Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew (RH) • Medieval Hebrew, also called Rabbinic, the Hebrew of the Middle Ages (MH) • Modern or Israeli Hebrew (IH)

17. 1.1 Hebrew: Origins • "The family of languages to which Hebrew belongs is grouped by linguists in a phylum called Afroasiatic. The geographical range of Afroasiatic covers northern and central Africa and western Asia. In time, Afroasiatic languages are attested from the 3d millennium b.c.e. (although some languages of the phylum must have existed for at least a millennium before this) until the present." [Schmitz, "Language-Hebrew: Early History of Hebrew," ABD, CD-Rom Edition]

18. 1.1 Hebrew: Origins • "The Afroasiatic phylum has five or six members: Egyptian (later called Coptic, now extinct) and Berber in N Africa, the Chadic family (whose best-known member is Hausa) in sub-Saharan Africa, the Cushitic-Omotic family in the Horn of Africa, and the Semitic family, which includes Arabic and Hebrew. " [Schmitz, "Language-Hebrew: Early History of Hebrew," ABD, CD-Rom Edition]

19. 1.1 Hebrew: Origins • "Hebrew belongs to the family of Afroasiatic languages commonly referred to as Semitic languages. The major division of this family is between East Semitic and West Semitic. East Semitic incorporates the group of dialects called Akkadian; West Semitic includes the Northwest Semitic languages, Arabic, and South Semitic. . . . " [Schmitz, "Language-Hebrew: Early History of Hebrew," ABD, CD-Rom Edition]

20. 1.1 Hebrew: Origins • "The Northwest Semitic languages comprise the Canaanite group and Aramaic. Evidence for early Northwest Semitic begins in the 3d millennium (if one admits some of the features of the language of Ebla) and continues to the end of the LB II period (around 1200 b.c.e.). Some of the distinctive features of Canaanite can be observed in these early Northwest Semitic samples, but the distinction between Canaanite and Aramaic remains difficult to impose until the Iron II period. A recent survey concludes that the Iron Age languages

21. 1.1 Hebrew: Origins of Syria-Palestine are best viewed as a continuum having Phoenician as one of its poles and Aramaic as the other. Hebrew is probably to be located near the center of this cline " [Schmitz, "Language-Hebrew: Early History of Hebrew," ABD, CD-Rom Edition]

22. 1.1 Hebrew: Origins • "The Canaanite languages include Phoenician (which distinguishes the minority dialect of Byblos from the more widespread dialect of Tyre and Sidon), Hebrew (which distinguishes a northern dialect, probably centered in Samaria, from a southern, the dialect of Jerusalem and Judah), Ammonite, Moabite, and Edomite. The language of the Deir >Alla texts should perhaps also be included." " [Schmitz, "Language-Hebrew: Early History of Hebrew," ABD, CD-Rom Edition]

23. 1.1 Hebrew: Linguistic Affinities • Hebrew & Greek Affinities? • Hamito-Semitic Affinities? • Proto –Semitic or Common Semitic • Akkadian • Ugaritic • Moabite • Ammonite • Edomite • Phoenician • Deir >Alla

24. 1.1 Hebrew: Proto-Semitic • "Bauer and Leander, writing in 1922, assumed that Hebrew was a fusion of an indigenous Canaanite language and newer West Semitic elements brought in by invaders and they were followed by Birkeland in 1940 and Driver. R. Meyer holds that the qat9al and yaqt9ulu systems have different origins and represent a mixing of different of different dialects which took place before the entry into Canaan. . . . A. Bendavid accounts for Aramaisms in biblical writing as a stylistic device used by the authors for variation. Sekine, however, assumes that there were two migrations, Amorite and Aramean, both of which influenced developments in Hebrew."

25. 1.1 Hebrew: Proto-Semitic • Qal passive • the prefixes b and l with the sense 'from' • the cohortative and jussive modes • -t as the indicator of the 3f.s., -a4h as the adverbial marker, and the pronoun )a4no4k|= 'I'. • Later innovations are the assimilation of /g8/ and /)/, /h}/ and /h9/ • the tendency to assimilate /n/

26. 1.1 Hebrew: Proto-Semitic • the partial reduction of diphthongs • the change from 3f.s. –t to –a4h • the nota accusativi )e4t, which follows upon the loss of case endings • later, the spirantization of /bgdkpt/

27. 1.1 Hebrew: Proto-Semitic • "The Proto-Semitic phonological repertoire may be reconstructed as having contained three vowels, a, i, u, which could occur short or long (a4, |4, u4), and 29 consonants (all still distinguished in Old South Arabian). . . ." • "Semitic morphology is strongly characterized, especially in its verbal forms, by what are termed discontinuous morphemes, which usually consist of three consonants . . . ." • "Nouns in Proto-Semitic may be reconstructed as having three inflectional cases, each marked in the singular by one of the short vowels: e.g.,

28. 1.1 Hebrew: Proto-Semitic nominative *ba(lum, 'lord,' genitive *ba(lim, and accusative *ba(lam.

31. 1.1 Hebrew: Linguistic Overview • Phonetics/Phonology: • Consonants: • Gutturals • Profusion of Sibilants • 6 letters with double pronunciations • Emphatics • Vowels: • matres lectionis - also called vowel letters (letters "vav," "yod," "he," and to a lesser extent "aleph")

32. 1.1 Hebrew: Linguistic Overview • Vowel points – • Tiberias: infralinear (The marks are under the consonants). • Babylonian and the Palestinian: supralinear (The marks above the consonants).

33. 1.1 Hebrew: Linguistic Overview • Grammar: • General Features: • Gender: Mas. & Fem. • Number: Singular, Dual & Plural • These are identified in the Nominal, Verbal, Adjectival, and Enumeratives • Grammatical concord is not 100%

34. 1.1 Hebrew: Linguistic Overview • Grammar: • Nominals: "Nominals are all words that may occur as the subject of a clause and include the principal subclasses of pronouns, proper nouns, and substantives. Personal pronouns, interrogatives, and demonstratives are partially analyzable and are defined by lists. Personal names, also partially analyzable, are characterized by gender assignment and absence of pluralization or dependency. Substantives are subdivided into nouns of variable gender and nouns of assigned gender."

35. 1.1 Hebrew: Linguistic Overview • Grammar: • Verbals: "Verbals comprise those items that may occur as the heads of predicate phrases, include the existentials, adjectives and verbs per se." • "The finite verbal system consists of two indicative sets, a direct command imperative limited to the second persons, and a parallel but partial indirect command, the jussive/cohortative system. One of the indicative paradigms is formed by personal prefixes and gender/number suffixes added to a stem; the other is formed by a fused set of personal and gender/number suffixes associated with a second verb stem. The imperative is formed by

36. 1.1 Hebrew: Linguistic Overview gender/number suffixes attached to a stem marginally different from the prefixed indicative verb, while the jussive/cohortative is formed by the addition of personal prefixes as well as gender/number suffixes. " • "Nonfinite forms of the verb include verbal adverbs (the "absolute" infinitives of traditional grammars) and the true ("construct" infinitive.")"

37. 1.1 Hebrew: Linguistic Overview • Grammar: • Enumeratives: "The enumeratives include an adjective for the word "one," a defective noun of symmetry for the word "two," substantives for the higher items, including "hundred," "thousand," and "myriad," and true numerals for the items between "three" and the multiples of ten. Switch concord occurs as the distinctive syntactic feature in numerical phrases between "three" and "nineteen."

38. 1.1 Hebrew: Linguistic Overview • Grammar: • Particles: "The term particle is the traditional designation for all residual classes that are neither analyzable nor derivable. This includes the categories of coordinating conjunctions, adverbials, subordinators, and relativizers. The conjunctions and relativizers are defined only by list."

39. 1.1 Hebrew: Linguistic Overview • Grammar: • Adverbials: "Other than those adverbs that are derived within the verbal system, this category includes a short list of unanalyzable forms, quantifiers like "also" and "even," and temporals such as "then" and "now."

40. 1. Bible & Book in the Ancient World 1.2 Aramaic 1.3 Greek 1.4 Trilingualism

41. 1.2 Aramaic: Introduction • "Aramaic is the best-attested and longest-attested member of the NW Semitic subfamily of languages (which also includes inter alia Hebrew, Phoenician, Ugaritic, Moabite, Ammonite, and Edomite). The relatively small proportion of the biblical text preserved in an Aramaic original (Dan 2:4-7:28; Ezra 4:8-68 and 7:12-26; Jeremiah 10:11; Gen 31:47 [two words] as well as isolated words and phrases in Christian Scriptures) belies the importance of this language for biblical studies and for religious studies in general, for Aramaic was

42. 1.2 Aramaic: Introduction the primary international language of literature and communication throughout the Near East from ca. 600 b.c.e. to ca. 700 c.e. and was the major spoken language of Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia in the formative periods of Christianity and rabbinic Judaism." [Kaufman] • "Jesus and his disciples, according to the stories in the Gospels, spoke Aramaic. Parts of the later books of the Hebrew Bible, as well as portions of the Gospels and Acts, are often thought to be translations from Aramaic originals, but even if not they are undoubtedly

43. 1.2 Aramaic: Introduction strongly "Aramaized" in their diction. Late biblical Hebrew and rabbinic Hebrew were heavily influenced by Aramaic in both grammar and vocabulary." [Kaufman] • "Two of the major translation traditions of the Hebrew Bible - the Syriac Peshitta and the Jewish Targums - are in Aramaic, as are substantial portions of rabbinic literature, the entire literary corpus of Syriac Christianity, and that of the Mandaeans (a non-Christian gnostic sect of S Mesopotamia). After the Moslem conquest, Arabic gradually displaced Aramaic as the literary and colloquial language of the Near East." [Kaufman]

44. 1.2 Aramaic: History • "Aramaic is attested over a period of almost 3,000 years, during which time there occurred great changes of grammar, lexical stock, and usage." • The major research project in the field - the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon

45. 1.2 Aramaic: History 1. Old Aramaic (to 612 BCE; 925-700BCE): • "This period witnessed the rise of the Arameans as a major force in ANE history, the adoption of their language as an international language of diplomacy in the latter days of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and the dispersal of Aramaic-speaking peoples from Egypt to Lower Mesopotamia as a result of the Assyrian policies of deportation. The scattered and generally brief remains of inscriptions on imperishable materials preserved from these times are enough to demonstrate that an international standard dialect had not yet been developed." [Kaufman]

46. 1.2 Aramaic: History 1. Old Aramaic (to 612 BCE): • "This phase is represented by inscriptions on stone and other materials written in the borrowed Phoenician alphabet . . . . The evidence for this phase comes not only from Northern Syria and Upper Mesopotamia, as was known for a long time, but also from Northern Palestine." [Fitzmyer] • "Deir (Alla. "This important but fragmentary text, painted on the plaster walls of a cultic installation, recounts a vision of "Balaam, son of Beor," the Transjordanian prophet known from Numbers 22-24. The fact that some scholars classify the language of this text as a Canaanite, rather than an Aramaic, dialect, illustrates that there is no demonstrable dividing line (or, in linguistic terms, a bundle of isoglosses) separating Canaanite and Aramaic at this time." [Kaufman]

47. 1.2 Aramaic: History 2. Official Aramaic (700-200 BCE): • "During this period Aramaic spread far beyond the borders of its native lands over the vast territories of the Neo-Babylonian and even larger Persian empires - from Upper Egypt to Asia Minor and eastward to the Indian subcontinent. Unfortunately, only a remnant of the undoubtedly once vast corpus of administrative documents, records, and letters that held these empires together has been preserved, for such texts were written in ink on perishable materials, in sharp contrast to the more durable cuneiform clay tablets of earlier W Asiatic cultures." [Kaufman]

48. 1.2 Aramaic: History 2. Official Aramaic (700-200 BCE): • "The bulk of the finds, however, is from Egypt, where the dry climate led to the preservation of papyrus and leather along with the expected ostraca and stone inscriptions. The major Egyptian finds are (1) papyrus archives of the Jewish military garrison at Elephantine/Syene (including deeds of sale, marriage contracts, formal letters to the authorities in Jerusalem, and fragments of literary materials); (2) the correspondence of the Persian satrap of Egypt, Arsames; (3) a packet of letters sent to family members residing at Syene and Luxor, discovered at Hermopolis; and (4) Saqqarah: a late-7th-century papyrus letter from a Philistine king (perhaps of Ekron) asking help of pharaoh against the king of Babylon; and legal and economic records on papyri and ostraca from the 5th and 4th centuries." [Kaufman]

49. 1.2 Aramaic: History 2. Official Aramaic (700-200 BCE): • "The Aramaic "official" letters in the book of Ezra are almost certainly composed in Imperial Aramaic, for both their language and their epistolary style are appropriate to the period." [Kaufman] • ". . . The majority of the letters normally have the following schema: (1) the praescriptio, (2) the initial greeting, either religious or secular, (3) secondary greetings, (4) the body of the letter, and (5) a concluding statement." [See Fitzmyer, "Aramaic Epistolography," in A Wandering Aramean, 183-204]

50. 1.2 Aramaic: History 2. Official Aramaic (700-200 BCE): • ". . . to Official Aramaic certainly belongs the Aramaic of Ezra, and undoubtedly also the Aramaic of Daniel." [Fitzmyer]