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Cambridge University Press 9780521859387 - The New Cambridged History of - The Bible - Edited by James Carleton Paget and Joachim Schaper Excerpt
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The languages of the Old Testament
Geoffrey Khan The languages of the Old Testament are Hebrew and Aramaic. The majority of the text is in Hebrew, with Aramaic being restricted to several chapters in Daniel and Ezra,1 a single verse in Jeremiah (10:11) and one phrase in Gen. 31:47. Hebrew was originally a language spoken by inhabitants of Canaan. If there is a historical basis to the biblical accounts of Israelite settlement, the language must have been adopted by the Israelite tribes after their migration to the land. It is, in fact, described once in the Old Testament as ‘the language of Canaan’ (ן ַ ַענְּכ תַ פְשׂ, Isa. 19:18), though elsewhere it is referred to as ‘Judaean’ (2.( תיִדּוהְיThe name ‘Hebrew’ is derived from the ancient name of the Israelites ʿIḇrim ()םיִרבִע. ְ The term is first attested as a designation of the language in the Hellenistic period in the Greek adverbial form ‘Εβραϊστί ‘in Hebrew’ and in rabbinic Hebrew sources in the form תיִרבִע ְ ‘Hebrew’. The ‘Aramaic’ language is referred to in the Old Testament by the term 3.תיִמָ ֲרא The earliest surviving records of Hebrew and Aramaic are inscriptions datable to the tenth century BC. Hebrew was a living language which was spoken until the end of the second century AD. Thereafter it continued to be used as a literary language until modern times. In the twentieth century a vernacular spoken form of Hebrew, based on a form of the literary language, was revived as the official language of the State of Israel. Aramaic was widely spoken in the Near East throughout the first millennium BC and the first half of the first millennium AD. Thereafter its spoken forms became geographically more restricted, but it still survives as a vernacular today in various areas. Hebrew and Aramaic belong to the north-west branch of the Semitic family of languages. Other north-west Semitic languages include Phoenician, Moabite (known almost exclusively from the Mesha stele), Ugaritic and Amorite (known mainly from proper names). To the Semitic family belong also languages such as Akkadian and Eblaite, which are normally classified as east Semitic, and a south Semitic branch that includes Arabic as well as various languages in south Arabia and Ethiopia, including Gə᾽əz (Ethiopic), though Arabic is sometimes classified in a separate central Semitic branch.4 One of the closest relatives of Hebrew is Phoenician, which was spoken in coastal areas of the Levant. It is attested in inscriptions in the first half of the first millennium BC, and later in Phoenician colonies in the Mediterranean.5 Hebrew and Aramaic are usually classified together in a subgroup of north-west Semitic called Canaanite, which was distinct from Aramaic. It was the Phoenician alphabet that was used to write Hebrew and Aramaic in the early first millennium and the scripts that were used for these languages at later periods were all descendants of this alphabet.6 The Hebrew texts of the Old Testament were composed at various periods before, during and after the Babylonian exile (597/587--538 BC), a few archaic passages being dated by some scholars to as early as the second half of the second millennium BC. The Aramaic passages of Daniel and Ezra were composed in the post-exilic period. The earliest biblical manuscripts are found among the Qumran scrolls, which date from the
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