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History 5.2 (1982) 133–53. ■ Lenowitz, H., “On Three Early guistic system known as Late Hebrew (attested in Incidences of Hebrew Script in Western Art,” in Maven in the and Rabbinic periods). Jeans, FS Z. Garber (ed. S. L. Jacobs; West Lafayette, Ind. Our material sources for the ■ 2009) 441–54. Longland, S., “Pilate Answered: What I consist of two types. The first, and the more signifi- Have Written I Have Written,” BMMA 26.10 (1968) 410–29. in terms of quantity, is literary, i.e., texts that ■ Mellinkoff, ., Outcasts: Signs of Otherness in Northern Euro- pean Art of the Late (Berkeley, Calif. 1993). ■ Na- originated in the relevant period, but whose manu- gel, A., “Twenty-Five Notes on Pseudoscript in Italian Art,” script evidence dates only from later periods. The in Res: Anthropology and Aesthetics 59–60 (2011) 228–48. second is material, i.e., papyri, epigraphic texts ■ Putík, A., “The Hebrew Inscription on the Crucifix at written on pottery shards, and inscriptions embed- Charles Bridge in Prague: The Case of Elias Backoffen and ded in mosaics and stones. Only the belongs Berl Tabor in the Appellation Court,” JudBoh 32 (1996) 26– to both types of sources since the complete extant ■ 103. Sabar, S., “Between Calvinists and : Hebrew manuscripts of are dated only to the high Script in Rembrandt’s Art,” in Beyond the Yellow Badge (ed. M. Merback; Leiden 2008) 371–404. Middle Ages, but fragments of biblical passages Ilia Rodov were found in and elsewhere, some dating even from the earlier centuries BCE. This category See also /Funerary Inscriptions; /Hebrew of sources also includes transliterations of Hebrew Language (individual words and complete texts) to other lan- guages, as in the case of the second column of Ori- gen of Alexandria’s . Hebrew Language There are also oral traditions of the various - I. Introduction ish diasporas as well as of the Samaritan commu- II. /Old Testament nity for the reading of the literary text which are III. significant for phonological knowledge of the lan- IV. Christianity guage of the literary corpora. V. From the of the Assyrian period, speakers VI. Music of Hebrew were exposed to other non-Canaanite Se- mitic , especially Akkadian and . I. Introduction With the Persian period, Indo-European languages Hebrew is a Canaanite dialect belonging to the began to impact on Hebrew: first Persian, and then, Northwest Semitic family of languages. It was spo- after the conquests of the Great, Greek, ken by the population of ancient in the region and with the expansion of the , of until the early centuries CE. As a result, . This linguistic contact should be regarded most of the texts canonized in the HB were com- from two different angles. Firstly, it is evident that, posed in Hebrew and thus Hebrew was awarded the depending on the location, there were bilinguals (or status of a . even multilinguals) who spoke at least one other With regard to the Hebrew language, a distinc- language besides Hebrew. It is therefore possible to tion must be made between the history of the lan- trace how the situation of the languages in contact guage as a linguistic system and the history of its exerted its influence first and foremost on the lexi- written forms. The former conforms to an idealized con, but to some degree, also on the . Sec- periodization of the language and differentiates be- ondly, there is some evidence of a diglossic distribu- tween Old Hebrew and Late Hebrew; the latter, tion between Hebrew and the other languages with however, bases the division on corpora thus result- which it coexisted. The term describes the ing in the traditional characterization, namely Bib- coexistence of two (or more) languages or of two lical Hebrew, Qumranic Hebrew, and Rabbinic - varieties of one language within one speech com- brew (with further sub-characterizations). There are munity. It characterizes multilingual situations in reciprocal relations between the two divisions: on which the functional domains of each of the lan- the one hand, our knowledge about the history of guages are apportioned in a kind of complementary the structure(s) of the language is based on the data distribution. These domains are usually ranked in gathered from the corpora using Hebrew and the a hierarchy, from the highly valued (H) to the less historical setting of these texts; on the other hand, valued (L). The H language is typically used for reli- the analysis of the linguistic information in the gious, educational, literary, and other prestigious various corpora is a de facto description of the uses domains, while the L language, representing more of the different historical systems by each corpus. of the , is primarily the spoken . This will alternate between these two sys- There is some evidence to prove that Hebrew, in its tems of division as appropriate, beginning with Old later periods served in certain areas as the H lan- Hebrew as represented in the Hebrew of the biblical guage, with Aramaic and Greek as the L languages. corpus and its sub-divisions (which include Archaic For example, the core of the is in Hebrew , Standard Biblical Hebrew, and and not in Aramaic or Greek, even in places where Late Biblical Hebrew) before proceeding to the lin- clearly either Greek or Aramaic were the common

Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception vol. 11 Authenticated | [email protected] © Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, 2015 Download Date | 11/25/18 9:00 AM 639 Hebrew Language 640 language of communication. Such a distribution is Sebba). Writing systems are not usually invented to supported both by the literary material as well as transcribe sounds (see Coulmas); this was obviously the epigraphic evidence. true for hieroglyphic and cuneiform writings, but it Elitzur Bar-Asher Siegal was also true for linear alphabets. Indeed, the early Hebrew writing was without and even had II. Hebrew Bible/Old Testament a restricted number of consonantal graphemes that Biblical Hebrew (BH), the language of the biblical did not reflect its variety of sounds; this is most corpus that extends historically from the beginning recognizable in Classical Hebrew with the and of the first millennium BCE until almost its end, śin, which were originally represented by a single can best understood by contextualizing it within letter until the added a dot to distin- the larger social and historical context of ancient guish the two sounds. Other classical phonemic dis- Israel and . The terminology for describing tinctions like // and /ǵ/ both were transcribed in BH has been quite varied. Biblical Hebrew is usu- Classical Hebrew as ; /ḥ/ and /h˚ / were written ally separated into three periods, which can be la- with ḥet in Classical Hebrew. These examples fur- beled as Archaic Biblical Hebrew (ABH), Standard ther illustrate the simplified nature of classical He- Biblical Hebrew (SBH), and Late Biblical Hebrew brew writing. A continuation of the spoken distinc- (LBH). The description Biblical restricts Hebrew to a tion for these sounds in the can specific corpus of literature, whereas the term Clas- be illustrated by the LXX transcriptions of proper sical Hebrew is less specific and can be applied more nouns (e.g., Heb. mrh, Gk. Gomorra; Heb. zh, Gk. broadly to ancient Hebrew in all its varieties during Gaza). The preservation of these pronunciations the classical periods. Classical Hebrew might include, into the Hellenistic period is evidence of the conti- e.g., Hebrew inscriptions and extend to include nuity of the Hebrew speech communities after the later Hebrew written in the Babylonian exile; on the other hand, the Hebrew (e.g., as utilized in the Dictionary of Classical Hebrew) writing tradition was profoundly disrupted by the in addition to (but not restricted to) Biblical He- Babylonian campaigns against and Judah brew. The classical period for Hebrew begins with (in 597, 586, and 581 BCE) and would result in a its emergence as a distinct language during the new literary dialect (LBH) during the Persian - early Iron Age (as represented especially in ABH) riod. through its use in the Second Temple period. Clas- The main source for Biblical Hebrew as we have sical Hebrew disappears when it ceased to be used received it comes from the tradition of the Masor- as a in Palestine following the “Bar- etes – that is, Jewish who copied and trans- Kokhba” revolt against Rome in the 2nd century CE mitted the biblical text after the 7th century CE. (132–35 CE); in the next century, the codification The Masoretic scribes preserved the Hebrew conso- of the (ca. 230 CE) marks the beginning nantal text while adding signs, accents, and of a new literary phase in the Hebrew language – the marginal notes of the Masorah. The oldest Mas- Rabbinic Hebrew. oretic manuscripts are the and Leningrad It is important to recognize that Classical He- Codices, which date to the 9th and 10th centuries brew is known from textual artifacts, whereas the CE. These manuscripts represent the Tiberian sys- typical linguistic study of languages follows pri- tem of vowels and accents dating from the 9th cen- marily speech. Extra-biblical inscriptions, or Epi- tury CE. graphic Hebrew (EH), contributes to the corpus of 1. Archaic Biblical Hebrew (ABH). The oldest textual artifacts and to a broader understanding of phase of Hebrew language is usually called Archaic Classical Hebrew. The linguistic study of languages Biblical Hebrew. It is preserved in poetic texts includ- usually follows speech communities, whereas the ing the Blessing of (Gen 49), the Song of Mo- study of BH must follow written literature created ses (Exod 15), the Oracles of (Num 23–24), primarily by scribal communities. The nuances of a the Poem and Blessing of (Deut 32–33), the living, vibrant speech community and local dialects Song of (Judg 5), the Song of is imperfectly captured by written artifacts. Thus, (1 Sam 2 : 1–10) and early (such as Pss 18, while there were likely many dialectal Hebrew vari- 78). This early stage of the Hebrew language would eties in ancient Israel and Judah as suggested by the have corresponded to the emergence of the early -Sibboleth incident (Judg 12 : 5–6), most kingdoms in Judah and Israel at a time when the of these dialectal differences are flattened by the scribal profession was primarily transnational. No- . Some vestiges of a northern or “Is- table early alphabetic inscriptions such as Qeiyafa raelian” dialect (IH) can be detected in biblical lit- (late 11th cent. BCE), the Calendar erature and inscriptions, but spelling is not neces- (10th cent. BCE), and Zayit Abecedary (late 10th sarily an accurate measure of vernacular dialects; cent. BCE), e.g., were written in an early Phoenician compare,e.g., the spelling of English words like script (as opposed to a local Hebrew national script). color/colour and theater/theatre or the various pronun- The identification of the early linear alphabet with ciations of words like tomato, garage,orvase (see Phoenician is related to the use of a restricted

Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception vol. 11 Authenticated | [email protected] © Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, 2015 Download Date | 11/25/18 9:00 AM 641 Hebrew Language 642 twenty-two alphabet that better maps Biblical Hebrew. This includes, for example, most the of Phoenician than either archaic of the Pentateuch and the Deuteronomistic History Hebrew or Aramaic that borrowed the alphabet. It ( through 2 Kings). More difficult to date, was quite typical at the time for writing system but also considered part of the SBH corpus are (such as cuneiform) to be used for a wide variety of “First” (chs. 1–39), , , , Na- languages (Sumerian, Akkadian, and assorted Akka- hum, , and . The description of dian dialects). The early Judean scribal also Hebrew in most biblical Hebrew is based reflect an international background (2 Sam 20 : 25; on this standard and central corpus of biblical writ- 1 Kgs 4 : 3) in keeping with the transnational nature ings. The description of this corpus as “Standard” of early writing. The early linear alphabet did not Biblical Hebrew reflects an overall cohesiveness of employ vowel letters, which also made it more eas- biblical literature while acknowledging some diver- ily adaptable to a variety of Northwest Semitic dia- sity. SBH may be regarded as the official literary lects including Phoenician, Hebrew, Aramaic, and register of Judean scribes who collected, edited, and Moabite. In other words, the early alphabet served transmitted this literature. as an ideal scribal code that was not bound by po- The standardization of Biblical Hebrew took litical or linguistic borders. place during the late Judean monarchy, in archaeo- There was a tendency for later scribes to nor- logical terms, the Iron IIC period (721–586 BCE). malize archaic language. For example, in Gen The standardization of Hebrew correlates with the 49 : 11 the Masoretic Qere normalized the archaic nationalization of linear alphabetic scripts in , pronominal suffix -h to -w. Or, in the case of ḥytw rṣ the Phoenician coast, , and Judah. The “wild beasts” (Gen 1 : 24), the movement towards standardization of national omits the -w, which presumably originally marked scripts also follows larger political events, namely the case ending. Furthermore, the enclitic in the rise of the neo-Assyrian empire and its linguis- Ps 18 : 16, pyqy-mym “sea beds,” is omitted in the tic ideology that included the creation of Imperial parallel version in 2 Sam 22 : 16, pyqy-ym. Archaic Aramaic as a standardized written language for the features were preserved in the face of later scribal administration of the western provinces of . standardization mostly because of frozen expres- One of the hallmarks of the emergence of Imperial sions or poetic registers that retained quaint or ar- Aramaic is the introduction of vowel letters into chaic forms. In addition, for a variety of different Northwest Semitic writing; and, the use of vowel reasons, forms sometimes seemed normal in the letters appears in epigraphic Hebrew dating to this later dialect of the scribes; e.g., the archaic verbal period as well. The use of vowel letters is also char- suffix -ty (2fs) is also found in Aramaic from a much acteristic of SBH; and, the chronological confluence later period; thus, an example like Judg 5 : 7 could of the rise of the neo-Assyrian empire, the creation be interpreted as Aramaic influence by later scribes, of Aramaic, and the use of vowel letters is undoubt- even though it originally preserved ABH. Some of edly not coincidental. the most common archaic features include pronom- 3. Epigraphic Hebrew (EH). Epigraphic Hebrew inal and verbal suffixes (such as the 3ms pronomi- is known from inscriptions dating from the 11th nal suffix -h instead of the SBH -w [e.g., Gen 49 : 11] century until the early 6th century BCE (that is, the or the 3mp -mw instead of SBH -m [e.g., Exod archaeological period known as the Iron II period). 15 : 10], archaic forms of the suffix tense with the The early “Hebrew” alphabetic inscriptions like the morphology /-ti/, /-at/, and /-a/ (e.g., Judg 5 : 7, “un- Qeiyafa Ostracon and the were writ- til you arose [šqmty], Deborah, you arose [šqmty]asa ten using an early Phoenician script; however, there in Israel”), and the retention of case endings are relatively few inscriptions dating to the Iron I (usually preserved in the , e.g., ḥytw (ca. 1200–980 BCE), the Iron IIA (ca. 980–840 BCE), rṣ “wild beasts” (Gen 1 : 24). The verbal system also or the Iron IIB (ca. 840–725 BCE) periods. The great evolved from archaic Hebrew as evidenced by the abundance of Hebrew inscriptions date to the late use of the so-called “imperfect conjugation” for all Judean monarchy, or Iron IIC period (725–586 BCE) “tenses”; this aspect of the verb can be explained as and are contemporary with the creation of SBH. result of the merger of two different prefix conjuga- The two largest inscriptional corpuses come from tions in West Semitic: a short prefix conjugation, the administrative contexts at cities like (in yaqtul (usually identified with a West Semitic pret- Israel) along with Arad and Lachish (in Judah). In erite) and a long prefix conjugation, yaqtulu (see spite of some critique (e.g., Knauf; Young et al.: Rainey). In addition, defective orthography (that is, 143–72; cp. Miller/Zevit: 455–89; Joosten), Hebrew the absence of vowel letters) was characteristic of inscriptions from the Iron IIC period show notable the earliest Hebrew writing, although it is also clear similarities with Standard Biblical Hebrew. that the scribal tradition tended to add vowel let- 4. (IH). The biblical corpus was ters in the transmission process. collected and edited in Judah (mostly in Jerusalem), 2. Standard Biblical Hebrew (SBH). The main but it still contains evidence of northern dialect(s) body of biblical literature is written in Standard of Hebrew associated with the kingdom of Israel.

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This northern kingdom was larger, more populous, language of a of people living in Judah, more economically and commercially diverse, and the exiles in , and the refugees in more wealthy than Judah – all factors that likely and elsewhere, but the role of Hebrew writ- played into its development of scribal culture. How- ing was now largely relegated to the preservation of ever, the destruction of Israel by Assyrians in the culture rather than being a vital part of the palace, late 8th century BCE resulted in the destruction temple, and economy. and dislocation of the scribal culture and literary The most extensive case for Transitional (or, tradition. The destruction of Israel did precipitate a “Exilic”) Hebrew was made by Mark Rooker in the great wave of northern refugees (including presum- book of (Rooker; Hurvitz 1981). More re- ably some scribes) that came into the south and cently, Hornkohl has demonstrated that Transi- brought their literary tradition and language. The tional Hebrew is evident when comparing the long most obvious example of northern traditions and and short editions of the Book of (Horn- language in the HB are the - narratives kohl). Still, it is difficult to reconstruct a historical (2 Kgs 17–2 Kgs 9). There is also widespread consen- situation where there would be flourishing Hebrew sus that the non-standard linguistic features of the literary activity during the Babylonian and early Song of Deborah (Judg 5) stem from its northern Persian periods (see Schniedewind: 126–63). provenance. It was also widely thought that the Elo- The fate of the Hebrew language was tied not hist source of the Pentateuch had a northern prove- only to scribal institutions, but also to the fate of nance; however, the very existence as well as extent speech communities. For example, villages that ex- of this source is a subject of some debate. Gary perience uninterrupted settlement usually preserve Rendsburg has done the most extensive research on their native language, even if they become bilin- the northern (Israelian) dialects of Hebrew and has gual. Jewish and Christian villages in Iraq that still a maximalist interpretation of its literary corpus speak Aramaic are an excellent illustration of this (see Rendsburg 2003), yet there remains debate phenomenon. As such, languages take on impor- about how clearly we can define the characteristics tance as symbols of group cohesion, identity, and and limits of Israelian Hebrew. For example, it is shared history. Likewise, Judean villages and settle- well known that there is a “foreign factor” in the ments that were not destroyed or dislocated by the HB; namely, non- are portrayed as using Babylonians likely preserved vernacular Hebrew, linguistically a non-standard grammar and lexicon even though the Hebrew scribal infrastructure was (see Rendsburg 1996). Yet, one cannot assume that destroyed. While the fate of Hebrew speech commu- these non-standard linguistic elements are simply nities varied in different regions during the Babylo- an Israelian Hebrew dialect; indeed, speech is a no- nian period, there was definite continuity. The sur- toriously difficult thing to encode precisely in writ- vival of Hebrew speech communities was critical to ing. Although there are characteristics of an Israel- the revival of Hebrew during the late Persian and ian dialect that can be identified in the HB and Hellenistic periods. inscriptions, the full extent of these the dialect(s) 6. Late Biblical Hebrew (LBH). A disruption in the will be the subject of continuing research and de- Hebrew scribal infrastructure resulting from the bate. Babylonian invasions into Judah is the watershed In addition to evidence from the biblical corpus, for the distinction between SBH and LBH. Of a few inscriptions from the northern kingdom have course, languages – both written and vernacular – been preserved. The most significant corpus of in- do not change immediately, and a transition period scriptions were discovered at the capital city of Sa- lasting at least through the 6th century and perhaps maria, especially the administrative documents in the early 5th century should be acknowledged. known as the Samaria Ostraca that catalogue deliv- One aspect of this transition was the use Aramaic, eries of oil and . These inscriptions have a few replete with the Aramaic script, as an administra- distinguishing linguistic features including re- tive language by the Assyrians, Babylonians, and duced diphthongs as in the word *yēn “wine” (cp. Persians. In fact, the Hebrew language itself began SBH, yyn), the nominal feminine morpheme –t as to be written with Aramaic script during this period in št “year” (for SBH with –h as in šnh), and the (though the first evidence of this comes from coins theophoric ending –yw as in šmryw “Shemaryaw” and seals dating to the 4th cent. BCE). Wherever (cp. SBH –yhw, that is, “Shemaryahu”). Judean villages experienced continuous settlement 5. Transitional Hebrew. The Hebrew language from the Iron Age into the Persian period, vernacu- goes through a transitional phase after the Babylo- lar Hebrew continued to be spoken and this vernac- nian campaigns against Judah. The Babylonians ular could have served for the revival of Hebrew used Aramaic as their administrative language, and during the Persian and Hellenistic periods. The use the social institutions that supported the Hebrew of Aramaic script for writing Hebrew indicates that scribes (palace, temple, economy, diplomacy) were the Aramaic chancellery also served for the revival destroyed or experienced radical upheaval during of Hebrew. Aramaic left its mark not only in script the 6th century BCE. Hebrew was still the spoken but also in the LBH lexicon and grammar. When

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Jews returned from exile and some measure of au- ■ Hurvitz, A., A Linguistic Study of the Relationship between the tonomy was reestablished in Persian during Priestly Source and the (Paris 1981). ■ Hurvitz, the 4th century, evidence in the form of coins and A., A Concise Lexicon of Late Biblical Hebrew (Leiden/Boston, seals indicates that Hebrew was once again used for Mass. 2014). ■ Joosten, J., “Review of Young, Rezetko, and Ehrensvärd 2008,” Bible and Babel 6 (2012) 535–42. local administration. ■ Knauf, E. A., “War ‘Biblisch-Hebräisch’ eine Sprache?,” The main corpus of Late Biblical Hebrew litera- ZAH 1 (1990) 11–23. ■ Miller, C. L./Z. Zevit (eds.), Diach- ture includes Chronicles, , Nehemiah, , rony in Biblical Hebrew (Winona Lake, Ind. 2012). ■ Rainey, and . Other partial works that can be in- A. F., “The Prefix Conjugation Patterns of Early Northwest cluded in LBH include books like (the prologue Semitic,” in Lingering Over Words: Studies in Ancient - and epilogue, chs. 1–2, 42) and certain psalms. In ern Literature, FS W. L. Moran (ed. T. Abusch et al.; Atlanta, addition, we should include the book of Ecclesias- Ga. 1990) 407–20. ■ Rendsburg, G. A., “Linguistic Varia- tes, which is among the few biblical texts that in- tion and the ‘Foreign’ Factor in the Hebrew Bible,” IOS 15 clude Persian (or Greek) loanwords (Seow). Unfortu- (1996) 177–90. ■ Rendsburg, G. A., “A Comprehensive nately, there is much debate about the dating of Guide to Israelian Hebrew,” 38 (2003) 5–35. ■ Rooker, M. F., Biblical Hebrew in Transition: The Language of biblical literature, and it is best to base descriptions the Book of Ezekiel (JSOTSup 90; Sheffield 1990). ■ Saenez- of LBH on this primary corpus. For example, many Badillos, A., A History of the Hebrew Language (trans. J. - scholars have traditionally dated the priestly source wolde; Cambridge 1993). ■ Schniedewind, W., A Social His- of the Pentateuch (e.g., much of the books of Leviti- tory of Hebrew: Its Origins Through the Rabbinic Period (New Ha- cus and Numbers) to the postexilic period, but ven, Conn. 2013). ■ Sebba, M., Spelling and Society: The other scholars have pointed out that there is noth- Culture and Politics of Orthography Around the World (Cam- ing in the language itself to indicate a postexilic bridge 2007). ■ Seow, L., “Linguistic Evidence and the Dat- origin or composition (see Hurvitz 1981). ing of Qohelet,” JBL 115 (1996) 643–66. ■ Young, I. et al., Some features of Late Biblical Hebrew include Linguistic Dating of Biblical Texts, vol. 1 (London/Oakville, the following: the increased use of vowel letters Ont. 2008). (e.g., dwd [SBH] and dwyd [LBH] “” or yrwšlm M. Schneidewind [SBH] and yrwšlym [LBH] “Jerusalem”), nominal patterns influenced by Aramaic (e.g., -wn as in ḥsrwn III. Judaism “lacking” or –wt as in mlkwt “kingdom”), the use of ■ Second Temple, Hellenistic, and to indicate collectives (e.g., dmym [LBH] for ■ Medieval Judaism ■ Modern Judaism dm [SBH] “blood”), changes in the verbal system (in- A. Second Temple, Hellenistic, and Rabbinic cluding the decreased use of the consecutive and Judaism wyhw “and it came to pass,” development of active as a present tense, use of periphrastic 1. Introduction. While the preceding article dealt constructions [hyh + ] for ongoing or ha- with Old Hebrew, including the bitual action, etc), and a proliferation of loanwords of the HB, this article will deal with Late Hebrew (e.g., especially important are Persian loanwords in its various manifestations. A clear continuity be- such as dt “law” or grt “letter”). Aramaic loanwords tween all periods of Hebrew allows, on the whole, and idioms are especially common in LBH, includ- for familiarity with the language of one corpus to ing Aramaic derived from , facilitate the understanding of the other corpora. that is, expressions such as “may the king live for- By applying the methodology of historical linguis- ever’ (Neh 2 : 3) or “if it pleases the king” (Neh 2 : 7). tics to the data collected from all the relevant cor- A convenient catalogue of LBH has now been com- pora, it is possible to trace diachronic developments piled by Avi Hurvitz (2014); he recalls the striking in the history of the Hebrew languages, develop- description of Ben-David about LBH as comprising ments that constitute the idealized distinction be- the struggle of BH to survive, the penetration of tween Old Hebrew and Late Hebrew. These devel- Aramaic from outside, and from within the sprout- opments are of various kinds: ing of Rabbinic Hebrew (11). These three facets of a. Structural simplifications. For example, in the LBH represent the legacy of the SBH literature that early language there were more verbal stems, to the was preserved and transmitted into the Persian pe- riod, the context of Aramaic chancellery that served extent that each active stem had both a passive and as a political and educational context for learning a middle equivalent. By the later biblical periods, in the Persian period, and a vernacular Hebrew lan- the equivalent passive stem of the Qal-stem was no guage that continued to be spoken and would even- longer operative. The process of syncretism between tually be codified in Mishnah and other rabbinic lit- the passive and middle stems progressed to the D- erature. stem as well, and consequently, in the language of , the Pual-stem is only barely evi- ■ Coulmas, F., Bibliography: Writing Systems: An Introduction dent. Similarly, the language of the Bible has a sys- to their Linguistic Analysis (Cambridge 2002). ■ Hadas-Lebel, M., Histoire del la langue Hébraïque: Des origines à l’époque de la tem involving many morphological tenses which Mishna (Paris 1995). ■ Hornkohl, A., Ancient Hebrew Periodi- are extremely scarce in the late corpora. (Their grad- zation and the Language of the (Leiden 2014). ual disappearance from the texts can be charted.)

Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception vol. 11 Authenticated | [email protected] © Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, 2015 Download Date | 11/25/18 9:00 AM 647 Hebrew Language 648 b. Diachronic changes. This type of development can tinued to be a living language in various contexts. be further subdivided according to of Beyond this, however, it is hard to suggest any so- the change: ciological or geographical criteria according to 1) External influences: which Hebrew was used. Some have suggested that Many of the forms that appear in the later texts it was the language spoken by the temple clergy, but not in the earlier texts have parallels in Ara- but others have proposed that Hebrew was mostly maic. This linguistic situation suggests that they used in rural areas. It has also been suggested that were introduced into Hebrew via Aramaic. For ex- the nationalist frame of mind surrounding the ample, the standard pronominal reciprocal con- Great Jewish Revolt (66–70 CE) and the Bar Kokhba struction (“each other” in English) in the Bible con- Revolt (132–135 CE) promoted the use of Hebrew. sists of the elements: ish-reehu/aḥiw “a man-his There are indeed more letters and legal documents companion/brother.” In Late Hebrew this construc- in Hebrew from the time of Bar-Kokhba, as well as tion consists of a repetition of the proximal demon- some linguistic evidence that this was intentional, stratives, such as zeh-zeh, a from Biblical Ara- but, there are, in addition, Aramaic letters from the maic thus intimating a borrowing from Aramaic. same circles and it is thus generally agreed that 2) Internal developments: such broad hypotheses are too simplistic. While in Old Hebrew the middle of the D-stem The texts from this period (, NT, and is Hitpael, in Late Hebrew it is Nitpaal. The change rabbinic literature) indicate that there were commu- in terms of the prefix (hi- vs. ni) can be explained nities in which Greek was dominant and others in as the result of an analogy to the middle-passive of which Aramaic or Hebrew were more central. From the Qal-stem Nifal. As there is no stem with a prefix a linguistic point of view, there were probably mu- - in Aramaic, this development clearly does not de- tual influences between Hebrew and Aramaic. rive from Aramaic. Nevertheless, both languages indicate develop- It is likely that Hebrew, like any other language, ments that typologically only occur in spoken lan- had dialects throughout all of its spoken periods guages, proving that late Hebrew (that is, later than and there is indeed evidence to support this as- Late Biblical Hebrew) evolved as a spoken language. sumption. Accordingly, differences between forms In addition, there are texts in Aramaic that seem to appearing in the old and the late periods should indicate a Hebrew-speaking writer and vice versa. not always be explained in terms of development; 2. Hellenistic Period (332–165 BCE) . Among the it is possible that the attested forms in the late peri- most important Hebrew texts from this period are ods derived from unattested forms of a different some of the last books of the Bible. Chapter 1 of the dialect in the old period. For example, the feminine , and arguably some other late bibli- singular proximal demonstrative in the Mishnah is cal books, such as , , and the last zo, while in the Bible it is zot. From a diachronic chapters of Zechariah, should may be dated to this point of view, and based on comparative data from period. other , it is easier to see how the Although the LXX is a Greek compilation, it biblical form derives from the mishnaic form. It can nonetheless serves as a witness to the Hebrew of thus be assumed that in Old Hebrew there was a this period. Among the biblical books that are dialectal variation in this grammatical category: one found only in the LXX and not in the Masoretic dialect, as attested in the Bible, had zot, and the text, there is evidence that some were probably first other, from which the dialect attested in the Mish- written in Hebrew. For example, certain idioms in nah is descended, had zo. the Greek of the resemble their He- Aside from diachronic developments, a different brew counterparts. Similarly, the was question remains: until which period was Hebrew written either in Hebrew or in Aramaic and trans- spoken? This question touches on the linguistic re- lated shortly after to the other language. The best lation between Hebrew and the other languages example of a Hebrew original of a septuagintal text spoken at the time. It is a difficult task, however, is the book of . The prologue, a later addi- to decipher from written texts alone the relation- tion made by Ben Sira’s grandson, indicates that the ships and interactions between different spoken text was first written in Hebrew in Jerusalem dur- languages. This task is made more challenging due ing the first quarter of the 2nd century BCE and to the presence of evidence from only certain re- subsequently translated into Greek by the grand- gions. However, the examination of texts in differ- . Although the composition did not survive in ent languages but from identical locations, together Hebrew in its entirety, about sixty-eight percent of with other linguistic considerations, offers at least the book is preserved in Hebrew fragments found a partial answer. among the Scrolls and at . Other While it is clear that some of the diaspora com- Hebrew fragments were found in medieval manu- munities no longer knew Hebrew (as the need for scripts in the Cairo and several lines are suggests) or even used it for liturgical quoted in the . Overall, the language of Ben purposes, it is certain that in Palestine, Hebrew con- Sira is archaic and has many elements that imitate

Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception vol. 11 Authenticated | [email protected] © Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, 2015 Download Date | 11/25/18 9:00 AM 649 Hebrew Language 650 biblical language, both in terms of grammar and Scroll, attest to a significantly different style and vocabulary. However, occasional deviations from demonstrate the dominance of this late Hebrew. the biblical language show signs of later innova- The literary texts show some grammatical inno- tions. vations, for example the forms of pronominal suf- The Hebrew inscriptions from this period are fixes, not found in either the earlier or later peri- predominantly biblical quotations from the Samari- ods. It is widely accepted by scholars that these are tan community, including an excerpt from the Dec- not a reflection of a different dialect (i.e., Qumranic alogue. Hebrew) but merely an over-imitation of biblical 3. Hasmonean Period (165–63 BCE). Hebrew was style. at least one of the official languages of the Hasmo- Some scholars describe the linguistic situation nean dynasty, if not the only language at , as both during the biblical period and at Qumran in can be deduced from Hebrew coins found from the terms of diglossia. Due to the fact that most of the period of Hyrcanus I (135–104 BCE), scrolls found in Qumran are written in a style that (104–103 BCE), and (103–76 seeks to imitate the biblical texts, with occasional BCE). deviations reflecting the grammar of later Hebrew, As for biblical texts, it is clear from historical some conclude that the Hebrew represented here allusions in chapters 8–12 that the second, Hebrew at this point the vernacular, while Biblical Hebrew part of the book of Daniel dates from the Hasmo- served as the literary medium. nean period. The contemporary chronicle, 1 Macca- Another group of texts dating to the Second bees, was written in Hebrew, as indicated by some Temple period, or to the years immediately follow- of the idioms used. Like Judith, however, it survives ing the temple’s destruction, are chapters or even only in its Greek . entire tractates in the Mishnah. Tractates Tamid and Outside of the , other major He- and certain chapters of Yoma describe the brew literary texts from this period are found in temple in the present tense and preserve some older the collection of the DSS which contain significant features of the Hebrew language. sectarian and non-sectarian texts. The fragments of A few inscriptions, mostly burial, were found Miqtsat Maaśe Ha- (4QMMT), with its sectarian around Jerusalem dating from the last decades of halakhah, were copied from a text originating from the Second Temple period. These consist mostly of this period. It is similarly accepted that the book of names and are surrounded by inscriptions in Ara- Jubilees was written in the middle of the 2nd cen- maic and Greek. Many epigraphic texts of inhabit- tury BCE. Many scholars also date the ants living in Masada from 66 to 73 CE were also to the Hasmonean period, but it should be noted discovered. Containing lists and short instructions that others believe that the original text was writ- in Hebrew and Aramaic, these attest to the everyday ten even before the founding of the Qumran com- use of the language. The Hebrew texts are mostly munity. (See below for an evaluation of Qumranic concerned with the observance of purity laws and Hebrew.) other temple rituals. Hebrew coins from the time 4. Roman Period to the First Revolt (63 BCE–73 of the Great Revolt were also discovered. CE). The capture of Jerusalem by Pompey in 63 BCE 5. Roman Period to the Editing of the Mishnah marks the beginning of the Roman period in Jewish (74–ca. 220 CE). Quotations from the rabbinic fig- history and the end of Jewish self-governance, as ures of this period, the , can be found in well as the introduction of another Indo-European the Mishnah, the , and the legal midrashim. language, namely Latin. It is thought that this literature was first transmit- Many of the hundreds of scrolls found both in ted orally and only later passed on in written form. the caves at Qumran and at Masada date to this pe- Thus, although the earliest manuscripts of this lit- riod which also signifies the end of these settle- erature are from as late as the Middle Ages, they ments. The scrolls from this time consist of biblical nonetheless indicate the language of this period. texts and their commentaries (pesharim), apocryphal This is the literary corpus with the most signifi- scriptures, sectarian texts such as the Manual of cant use of postbibical Hebrew, often called Mish- Discipline and the Document, hymns naic Hebrew. While there are claims that the litera- and the non-literary text of the . The ture of this period was originally composed in late vast majority of the texts from Qumran are in He- Hebrew and every deviation should be analyzed as brew, with a minority written in Aramaic and a later interference in the process of the transmis- Greek. The Hebrew texts from this corpous indicate sion of the texts, a more sophisticated description a shift from classical Hebrew. Most of the texts are of the relationship between classical and late He- written in a style which seeks to imitate biblical brew in this period is conceivable. texts. Despite this imitation, many features of this Classical Hebrew per se does not appear in the late Hebrew can still be identified, especially in rabbinic corpus; however, it is evident that the rab- terms of the lexicon but also in terms of the gram- bis often used a language which is more similar to . Some of the scrolls, most notably the Copper Biblical Hebrew. There are, for example, various li-

Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception vol. 11 Authenticated | [email protected] © Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, 2015 Download Date | 11/25/18 9:00 AM 651 Hebrew Language 652 turgical compositions and texts which bear a close estinian Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud, relation to biblical texts. In such cases it is useful which are structured as discussions on the Mishnah to consider the relationship between classical He- and originate from Palestine and respec- brew and late Hebrew in terms of an internal di- tively. The other significant corpora from this pe- glossia, more specifically, the concept of a contin- riod are the early aggadic midrashim composed in uum in diglossia, as classical Hebrew in these Palestine in a mixture of Hebrew and Aramaic, with contexts shades into the usual idiom of the rabbinic some tendencies specific to the functions for which texts. Similarly, there are specific tractates (such as each language is designated. Overall, the relation- Avot) and some corpora (such as the legal mid- ship between clasical Hebrew and late Hebrew in rashim in contexts which quote the biblical verses) the texts from this period is similar to that of the that tend more towards archaism and consequently, previous period. It is possible to trace some devel- the presence of older Hebrew is felt. opments, mostly in the lexicon and occasionally Bearing in mind the gap between written lan- also in syntactic structures within late Hebrew, guages and spoken languages, and the tendency of from the previous period to this one. the former to rely on historical customs, it is there- It is highly significant that epigraphic texts in fore not surprising that the rabbinic corpus often Hebrew from this period are extremely rare and contains forms that are similar to older Hebrew, de- thus Hebrew appears, on the whole, in certain fro- spite clear evidence that the spoken language took zen formulae and burial inscriptions. a different shape. For example, it has been proven The final Hebrew corpus from this period is the that the consonant m at the end of the word either early Palestinian piyyutim, the Jewish liturgical shifted to n or was nasalized. Nonetheless, in the poems. The language of this demonstrates rabbinic corpora, the letter m still appears in the innovations of an artificial poetic language specific majority of the words that ended historically with to the genre, and thus it is not a simple matter to m. This does not mean that these words were first locate it on the continuum of classical and late He- spelled with n and subsequently changed to m, but brew. rather that this is an example of the broad cross- 7. The Shift from Old Hebrew to Late Hebrew linguistic phenomenon of spelling reflecting histor- as the . As has been demon- ical grammar. This could also be the case with re- strated, the shift from Old to Late Hebrew in litera- gard to the representation of morphological catego- ture was gradual, but it remains unclear why, after ries. Moreover, when late Hebrew appears in the the First Revolt, Late Hebrew became more domi- texts, it does not necessarily attest to greater origi- nant in a growing number of texts, and why a dia- nality, but merely that at some point in the history lect whose earlier use was mainly colloquial began of the text, either in its composition or in its trans- to be used in literature. One theory suggests a con- mission, the given text was exposed to and conse- quently influenced by late Hebrew. nection with the contemporary nationalist move- Most of the epigraphic evidence from this pe- ment or with socio-economic changes among the riod is from the years of the Second Revolt led by ruling class. Two other considerations should, how- Bar-Kokhba. This corpus includes letters, legal doc- ever, be taken into account: first, the nature of the uments, coins, and other objects bearing testimony texts and second, general linguistic developments to daily uses of the language. The language of these in the region. Epigraphic texts represent different documents is late Hebrew, reflecting, however, a genres and often registers and therefore cannot be dialect which is different to that of rabbinic litera- considered alongside literary texts. Similarly, rab- ture. binic texts transmitted orally should not be given Quotations of the from both the Palestin- the same linguistic considerations as texts transmit- ian and the Babylonian should be men- ted in written form. Regarding linguistic develop- tioned when considering the language from this pe- ments, a similar shift, dating from the same period, riod. (See below for texts composed in the later has been noted from Middle Aramaic to Late Ara- Amoraic period.) Interestingly the language of the maic characterized by the use of local dialects for tradition transmitted through the Babylonian Tal- literary purposes. Finally, as has been shown, the mud reflects a different dialect. There are good rea- evolution of the language as a system took place for believing that this dialect is an original rep- earlier and therefore, such a development in the resentation of a language in Palestine as it written form is not entirely unexpected. demonstrates some similarity to the epigraphic data Bibliography: ■ Bar-Asher, M., “Traces of Biblical Hebrew found in Palestine from this era. in the Mishnah,” in Studies in , vol. 1 (Jerusa- Finally, it should be noted that there are claims lem 2005) 301–12. [Heb.] ■ Bar-Asher, M., “Mishnaic He- that the earliest manifestations of the Jewish form brew: An Introductory Survey,” in The Literature of the Sages, of poetry known as (see below) also stem vol. 2 (ed. S. Safrai et al.; Assen/Philadelphia, Pa. 2006) 567– ■ from this period. 95. Barr, J., “Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek in the Hellenis- tic Age,” CHJ 2 (ed. D. W. David/L. Finkelstein; Cambridge 6. The Talmudic Period (ca. 220–500/700 CE). 1989) 79–114. ■ Price, J. J./H. Misgav, “Jewish Inscriptions Two major anthologies from this period are the Pal- and Their Use,” in The Literature of the Sages, vol. 2 (ed. S.

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Safrai et al.; Assen 2006) 461–83. ■ Rabin, C., “Hebrew and tion. From the creation of humanity until the year Aramaic in the First Century,” in The Jewish People in the First of the construction of the , Hebrew Century (ed. S. Safrai/M. Stern; Assen 1976) 1007–39. was the only language. After had scattered the ■ Rendsburg, G. A., Diglossia in Ancient Hebrew (New Haven, people across the earth and transformed their Conn. 1990). ■ Spolsky, B., “Triglossia and in Jew- speech into mutually unintelligible languages, the ish Palestine of the First Century,” IJSL 42 (1983) 95–110. only Hebrew-speakers remaining were the line of ■ Spolsky, B., “Diglossia in Hebrew in the Late Second Tem- ple Period,” Southwest Journal of Linguistics 10 (1991) 85– . Saadia notes the constancy of the Israelites to 104. their language in both and Egypt, and em- Elitzur Bar-Asher Siegal phasizes that God spoke to Moses and revealed the Torah in Hebrew. It became the language of Israel- B. Medieval Judaism ite kings, , , , and princes un- 1. The Islamic Milieu. Hebrew studies, as we til the Babylonian exile. During the post-exilic pe- know them, originated during the medieval period. riod ceased, as Jews took foreign wives In Islamic lands, Hebrew scholarship developed in and abandoned the Holy Tongue: “half of their response to . Muslims ascribed the children spoke the language of , and they Qurān’s preeminence not only to its divine origin could not speak the language of Judah, but the lan- and prophetic content, but also to its language, guage of each people” (Neh 13 : 23). Subsequently, which they deemed peerless and inimitable. As Is- as they were exiled from the Land and scattered far lam became the principal religion in the Near East and wide, the Jews adopted many different lan- and North Africa, Arabic became the guages, to the detriment of their Hebrew, so that and prestige language. Mastery of Arabic, more they could no longer comprehend the Torah. than anything else, expressed cultivation and re- Roused to address this situation, Saadia states that finement; the standard of every writer was elo- he composed the Egron in 902 CE, so that they will quence (Arab. faṣāḥa). For Jews, Arabic presented an never again neglect the Holy Tongue and will know invitation and a challenge. Learning the language the Torah (Brody). This account proved to be influ- properly provided an entrée into Islamic society. ential; it was rehearsed and revised by ibn But acknowledging the supremacy of Arabic, could Gabirol (1021–1058), Judah ha- (ca. 1075– mean neglecting Hebrew, which, in turn, posed a 1141), Judah Alḥarizi (1165–1225), Moses Maimon- threat to Jewish cultural identity. To be sure, new ides (1138–1204), (1240–1290), Hebrew works were composed during the 1st cen- and Profiat Duran (ca. 1350–ca. 1415) among turies of , particularly midrashim and piyutim others. Strikingly, Saadia not only composed the (liturgical poems) – the latter in a highly idiosyn- narrative in biblical Hebrew, but pointed and punc- cratic idiom. The various systems of pointing the tuated it according to the Tiberian system, an inno- biblical text appeared during this period as well; vation for which he was criticized. the masoretic enterprise may even have received im- A prolific author, Saadia developed many genres petus from the invention of Arabic vowel signs for in Arabic and Hebrew, which were new to the Jew- ish literary canon. He fixed the convention, main- the Qurān by Muslim scholars (8th cent.) But it was tained for centuries by the Jews of Islamic lands, of Saadia ben Gaon (882–942), a prolific author writing prose in Arabic and poetry in Hebrew. Bible and vigorous leader, who first addressed Jews’ igno- commentaries, Hebrew grammars and dictionaries, rance of Hebrew directly. legal monographs, theological treatises, medical a. . In the introduction to the first He- texts, and personal correspondence were all com- brew dictionary, Sefer ha-Egron, Saadia acknowl- posed in Middle Arabic, most often copied in He- edged that he was inspired by the work of an Arabic brew characters (Judeo-Arabic). These works ex- lexicographer. While his own lexicon is but a He- ploited stylistic features and technical vocabulary brew-Arabic glossary, it paved the way for more current in books by Muslim or Christian authors. substantial works, e.g., Kitāb al-uṣūl of ibn Needless to say, the Hebrew component of these Janāḥ (early-mid-11th cent.) and the Mikhlol of - texts varies considerably according to subject mat- vid Qimḥi (ca. 1160–ca. 1235). Similarly, his gram- ter and author. At the same time, Jewish liturgical matical treatises were the first in an extensive lit- poetry continued to be written exclusively in He- erature composed in Arabic and Hebrew over the brew. Responding to Muslim claims for the superi- next five centuries. In the introduction to Sefer ha- ority of Arabic, Saadia and his successors champi- Egron, Saadia developed a history of the Hebrew oned a pure biblical idiom, abandoning the language, which subsequent grammarians repeated artificial language of classical piyut. Like their Mus- with amplifications. The Holy Tongue (leshon ha-qo- lim contemporaries, they strove for eloquence desh), says Saadia, using a familiar rabbinic epithet, (Arab. faṣāḥa; Heb. tsaḥot, cf. Isa 32 : 4). Saadia also is God’s chosen language in which the sing wrote polemical verse in Hebrew, notably a long, his praises. Like his , it has enjoyed a elaborately constructed poem entitled Eśśa meshali, and suffered a long period of degrada- which was directed against the Karaites.

Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception vol. 11 Authenticated | [email protected] © Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, 2015 Download Date | 11/25/18 9:00 AM 655 Hebrew Language 656 b. The Karaites. Karaite literary activity in Hebrew Hebrew verse: (1) poetry would employ an unadul- had, in fact preceded Saadia’s efforts by over half a terated biblical idiom; (2) the poetics ( century. The code of al-Nahāwandī (first schemes, meters, forms) would be adapted from half of the 9th cent.) and the commentary on Minor Arabic models; and (3) secular themes, imported Prophets by Daniel al-Qūmisī (late 9th cent.) were from Arabic verse, would furnish the basis for a both composed in Hebrew. According to Jacob al- large and innovative Hebrew corpus. Suddenly, the Qirqisānī (ca. 935), Benjamin even insisted that language could be employed as a means of diver- Jews speak Hebrew to each other (Kitāb al-Anwār p. sion, through the composition of wine, , and 645, lines 19–20). By the 10th century, Karaites in nature poetry, or for other social purposes, such as the Near East maintained an Arabic/Hebrew diglos- panegyrics, laments, and epithalamia. While these sia as well. ben Jeroham’s versified polemic innovations elicited some negative reactions, by the against Saadia, Wars of the , appeared in both mid-11th century they had become widely accepted; languages (the Arabic edition is lost); curiously, his in large measure, liturgical verse (piyut) conformed Hebrew betrays payyetanic forms. Simple Hebrew to the new poetics as well. Among the major figures dirges also formed part of their liturgy. But for the in this literary enterprise were ibn Naghrela most part, the sectarians wrote in Arabic. The rami- (993–1056), , , fied literature (commentaries, codes, linguistic Judah ha-Levi, and . The latter, works), which they produced during the 10th–11th in his commentary on Ecclesiastes (5 : 1) harshly centuries, was largely devoted to elucidating scrip- criticized the classical piyut of Qalir (ca. ture philologically and rationalistically; it repre- 570–ca. 640) for its neologisms and opacity. By his sents a most significant contribution to Hebrew day, biblical Hebrew grammar and composition scholarship. At first, the Karaites categorically de- had long been fixed with the Andalusian Jewish nied the authority and validity of rabbinic litera- curriculum. Among the Sephardi élite, the ability ture, and therefore ignored rabbinic explanations to write Hebrew poetry was the sine qua non of a of rare biblical expressions; this attitude softened Jewish gentleman. during the 11th century (Tirosh-Becker). During 2. Christian Europe. The displacement of Andalu- this period, Karaite communities were established sian Jewry by the Almohade invasions (1145–47) in the Byzantine Empire, where a different diglos- had consequences for the history of Hebrew. Mov- sia existed: Jews wrote Hebrew and spoke Greek. ing to Christian Europe, where most Jews had no Through intensive scholarly contacts with the com- direct knowledge of Arabic, Abraham ibn Ezra be- munity in Jerusalem, Byzantine Karaites created a gan writing Hebrew Bible commentaries, which substantial library of translations and original were widely disseminated and raised the philologi- works in an idiosyncratic arabicized Hebrew, pos- cal standards of Jewish scriptural studies signifi- sessing certain biblical features (Maman). By the cantly. While he championed Biblical Hebrew, Ibn 13th–14th centuries, however, Karaites in Asia Mi- Ezra did not shun Rabbinic Hebrew; his prose even nor and the Crimea had adopted the Sephardic He- features certain Arabisms, which became common brew of Abraham ibn Ezra (1089–1164) and the Ibn among Mediterranean Jewry. The growing demand Tibbon family. for Hebrew translations of Arabic texts in 12th- c. Andalusia. Andalusian dates to the 10th 13th-century Christian and Provence brought century. Under the patronage of the Jewish courtier many more Arabisms into the language. By con- H asdai ibn Shaprut (ca. 915–ca. 970), Hebrew schol- sciously imitating their source texts’ syntax and arship flourished. The two outstanding figures calquing their technical vocabulary, translators were Menaḥem ibn Saruq (ca. 915–ca.970) and such as Alḥarizi and the Ibn Tibbons developed a (920–990). Menaḥem, who new expository language, employed in Hebrew served as H asdai’s Hebrew secretary, composed a philosophical and scientific writing into the early dictionary (Maḥberet), which would later con- modern period. It constituted a separate register sult. He helped establish the Hebrew philology for alongside rabbinic Hebrew (standard in halakhic which Spanish Jewry would become famous, most works) and Biblical Hebrew (poetry and narrative), notably through the writings of Judah H ayyūj (10th which remained the ideal. The scriptural idiom, in cent.) and Jonah ibn Janaḥ (see also “Hebrew Gram- fact, came to be invested with special mystical qual- mar”). While Menaḥem’s lexicon is in Hebrew, later ities, as we shall see below. Andalusian scholars, such as Ibn Gabirol, Baḥya ibn A different diglossia had long obtained in Chris- Paqūda (11th cent.), ibn Ghiyāth (d. 1089), tian Europe and Byzantium, where Jews had no ac- Moses ibn Ezra (ca. 1060–ca. 1139), and Judah ha- cess to Latin or literary Greek. Consequently, they Levi composed expository prose almost exclusively wrote almost exclusively in Hebrew, while speaking in Judeo-Arabic, maintaining the old diglossia. the . The glosses in Rashi’s A student of Saadia’s, Dunash ben Labrat Bible commentaries, e.g., or the Greek terms in Kar- brought the ideals of Hebraic purism to Spain. It aite texts from Byzantium attest to this bilingual- was he who established the norms of Andalusian ism. During the High and , Euro-

Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception vol. 11 Authenticated | [email protected] © Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, 2015 Download Date | 11/25/18 9:00 AM 657 Hebrew Language 658 pean Jewry, east and west, employed Hebrew Hebrew alone, the “mother of ,” was a natu- almost exclusively in all genres of writing, includ- ral (i.e., divine) language chosen by God; all other ing , rabbinics, mysticism, and po- languages were the product of human convention. etry. They created a substantial body of Hebrew He identified mystical significance in the forms of narrative prose as well, including versions of popu- the written letters, their combinations, and the lar romances (e.g., the ), Arabic- vowel signs. He maintained that by contemplating style maqāma collections (e.g., Isaac ibn Sahula’s the forms, shapes, and sounds of Hebrew words in Meshal ha-qadmoni), and travel accounts (e.g., Benja- Scripture it was possible to achieve understanding min of Tudela’s Travels). Retold biblical stories (e.g., of the true essence of reality (Idel: . 1). Through Sefer ha-Yashar) and historiography (e.g., Sefer Yosip- the discovery and comprehension of the divine pon and Solomon ibn Verga’s Shevet Yehudah) af- names hidden within the biblical text, it was pos- fected a biblical style, while exempla (e.g., the sto- sible to apprehend God, and comprehend the Torah ries in Sefer Ḥasidim) adhered to rabbinic models. and its secrets. Knowledge of this kind was acces-  Among the pietists of the Rhineland (Hasidei Ash- sible only through an intimate acquaintance with kenaz; 12th–13th cent.) the Hebrew language as- the HB. sumed mystical qualities. Building upon earlier works, such as Sefer Yetsirah (The Book of Creation), Bibliography: ■ Alfonso, E., Islamic Culture through Jewish they developed an esoteric theology grounded in a Eyes (London/New York 2008). [Esp. ch. 1] ■ Bacher, W., logocentric reading of Scripture. Through the “The Views of Jehuda Halevi Concerning the Hebrew Lan- ■ analysis of individual words, their rearrangement, guage,” Hebr. 8 (1892) 136–49. Baron, S. W., A Social and Religious History of the Jews, vol. 3 (New York 21958). [Esp. 3– the recombination of their letters, the detection of 61] ■ Brody, R., Sa’adyah Gaon (trans. B. Rosenberg; Oxford acronyms, and numerological calculations (gematri- 2013); trans. of id., Seadyah Gaon (Jerusalem 2006). yot), the pietists could discover upwards of twenty ■ Chomsky, W., “The Growth of Hebrew During the Middle subjects within any verse. Undergirding this system Ages,” in The Seventy-Fifth Anniversary Volume of the Jewish was a religious conception of Hebrew, the language Quarterly Review (ed. A. A. Neuman/S. Zeitlin; Philadelphia, of divine revelation. Pa. 1967) 121–36. ■ , J., The Hebrew Story in the Middle a. Judah ha-Levi and . Among Iberian Ages (Jerusalem 1974). [Heb.] ■ Dan, J., “The , speculation concerning the nature of the He- Hasidic Concept of Language,” in Hebrew in (ed. L. ■ brew language developed within larger philosophi- Glinert; Oxford 1993) 11–25. Drory, R., Models and Con- tacts: and Its Impact on Medieval cal frameworks. Building upon the history of the (Leiden 2000); trans. of id., The Emergence of Jewish-Arabic Lit- Sacred Tongue sketched by Saadia, Judah ha-Levi erary Contacts at the Beginning of the Tenth Century (Tel made Hebrew central to his theory of election: 1988). [Heb.] ■ Friedländer, M., “Jehudah ha-Levi on the God’s chosen people have been promised the choic- Hebrew Language,” in Semitic Studies in Memory of Alexander est land and given his Law in the first and finest of Kohut (ed. G. A. Kohut; Berlin 1897) 139–51. ■ Halkin, A. languages. Ha-Levi expounds at length on He- S., “The Medieval Jewish Attitude Toward Hebrew,” in Bib- brew’s primacy (temporal and axiological), its holi- lical and Other Studies (ed. A. Altmann; Cambridge, Mass. ness, and its inherent excellence in 2.66–81 1963) 233–48. ■ Idel, M., Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics (Friedländer). By contrast, Moses Maimonides took in (Albany, N.Y. 1989). ■ Kellner, M., Mai- a rationalistic, functional approach to the “Holy monides’ Confrontation with Mysticism (Oxford 2006). [Esp. ch. Tongue,” whose sanctity, he states, derives from its 5] ■ Maimonides, M., Guide of the Perplexed (trans. S. Pines; lack of vocabulary for the sexual organs, copulation, Chicago, Ill. 1963). ■ Maman, A., “Karaite Hebrew,” in Kar- aite Judaism (ed. M. Polliack; Leiden 2003) 485–503. or excrement (Guide 3.8). Hebrew, he says, is a lan- ■ Morag, S., “The Jewish Communities of Spain and the Liv- guage like other languages – logical, expressive, but ing Traditions of the Hebrew Language,” in The Sephardi Leg- ultimately limited in its ability to discuss the di- acy, vol. 2 (ed. H. Beinart; Jerusalem 1992) 103–14. ■ Ra- vine. He vehemently rejects any suggestion that the bin, C., “Hebrew and Arabic in Medieval Jewish language is supernatural or that the divine names Philosophy,” in Studies in Jewish Religious and Intellectual His- possess special powers. tory, FS A. Altmann (ed. S. Stein/R. Loewe; Tuscaloosa, Ala. b. . The contrasting views of Judah ha-Levi 1979) 235–45. ■ Sáenz-Badillos, A., A History of the Hebrew and Maimonides echo an ancient debate concerning Language (Cambridge 1993). [Esp. ch. 7] ■ Scholem, G., the natural or conventional nature of language (see “Der Gottes und die Sprachtheorie der Kabbala,” in , Crat.). Maimonides followed Aristotle in as- id., Judaica, vol. 3 (Frankfurt a.M. 1970) 7–70; ET: “The Name of God and the Linguistic Theory of the Kabbala,” serting that all language, including Hebrew, is con- Diog(GB) 79 (1972) 59–80; 80 (1972) 164–94. ■ Septimus, ventional; Judah ha-Levi adopted the view that lan- B., “Maimonides on Language,” in The Heritage of the Jews of guage is natural, i.e., divine. Ultimately, the latter Spain (ed. A. Doron; 1994) 35–54. ■ Tirosh-Becker, position dominated medieval Jewish thought O., “The Use of Rabbinic Sources in Karaite Writings,” in through its kabbalistic elaboration by Moses (ed. M. Polliack; Leiden 2003) 319–37. Naḥmanides (194–1270), Joseph Gikatilla (1248– ■ Zwiep, I. E., Mother of Reason and Revelation: A Short History 1325) , and especially Abraham Abulafia (1240–af- of Medieval Jewish Linguistic Thought (Amsterdam 1997). ter 1292). In Abulafia’s ramified linguistic theory, Daniel Frank

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C. Modern Judaism (present), and yiqtol (future), resembling Modern or Israeli Hebrew emerged in Palestine in and, to a lesser extent, Mishnaic Hebrew; by con- the late 19th and early 20th centuries during the trast, the latter is based around the qatal (punctive, first large waves of Jewish immigration from East- usually past, actions), yiqtol (present/future ongoing ern Europe. Over the previous many centuries, the and past habitual actions), wa-yiqtol (preterite), and language had been in widespread use among Jews we-qatal (future and past habitual actions). Likewise, for reading, writing, and recitation, but it had not both Modern and Biblical Hebrew exhibit different been a vernacular with native speakers. The newly trends in clause formation: (like revernacularized tongue was born out of the ideo- Yiddish and other European languages) prefers sub- logical desire for Hebrew to serve as the Jewish na- , while Biblical Hebrew favors coordina- tional language in both speech and writing. Mod- tion. ern Hebrew constituted a fusion of linguistic Similarly, the lexis of Modern Hebrew differs influences, including elements from historical He- significantly from that of the Hebrew Bible. This is brew sources, as well as substantial input from - partially ascribable to the fact that the revernacular- dish (the native tongue of most early revernaculiz- ized language did not adopt all biblical words and, ers), Russian, Arabic, and other languages. conversely, that much of its vocabulary derives from This mélange included a substantial biblical postbiblical Hebrew, Yiddish, Arabic, English, etc., component that survives in the present-day lan- in addition to new words created from pre-existing guage. For example, certain typically biblical mor- roots. Moreover, Modern Hebrew contains many phological elements are employed in Modern He- false with biblical vocabulary. In some brew to the partial or complete exclusion of their cases, the meaning of a biblical word changed in postbiblical counterparts. Thus, the standard first rabbinic or medieval times and entered the modern person common pronoun is the characteristi- language in that sense; for example, the noun ot, cally biblical variant anaḥnu, while its rabbinic which in the Bible means “sign,” is typically used equivalent anu is restricted to high-register set- in Modern Hebrew in the mishnaic sense of “letter tings. Likewise, the form of qal with first of the alphabet.” In other cases, early speakers of radical yod or follows biblical precedent, e.g., Modern Hebrew intentionally adapted biblical vo- la-tet “to give,” la-śet “to carry,” la-daat “to know,” cabulary for their own purposes. Thus, they appro- instead of the rabbinic variants li-ten, li-śa, le-da. priated unclear biblical words to label modern con- Similarly, much biblical vocabulary is used cepts lacking Hebrew terms; for example, the identically in Modern Hebrew. This includes com- obscure ḥašmal (Ezek 1 : 27) became mon lexical items such as ēṣ “tree,” āb “father,” “electricity.” Similarly, as many of them subscribed and zāhāb “gold,” in addition to rare biblical words to an avowedly secular ideology, they sometimes se- that have become commonplace in the present-day lected biblical vocabulary linked to religious ritual language, e.g., the hapax legomenon šum, “garlic” and consciously neutralized its meaning; for exam- (Num 11 : 5). ple, the biblical term mazleg (1 Sam 2 : 13), a three- Moreover, many biblical phrases endure as pronged implement used for meat sacrifices in the Modern Hebrew idioms. For example, ’s temple, became the word for “fork.” statement to his brothers ha-yeled enennu “the boy is The linguistic relationship between Modern gone” (Gen 37 : 30) exists in Modern Hebrew as an and Biblical Hebrew is thus complex, and its precise expression meaning “vanished without a trace.” nature is disputed. Linguists and the Hebrew- However, there are also numerous linguistic dif- speaking public have traditionally regarded Mod- ferences between Biblical and Modern Hebrew. ern Hebrew and its biblical ancestor as mutually in- First, certain biblical morphological features have telligible varieties of the same language (see e.g., only restricted use in the . For ex- Ullendorff). Thus, until recently the Hebrew Bible ample, the typically biblical construct was invariably studied in the original in Israeli with subject suffix in temporal clauses, e.g., be-hag- schools, under the assumption that its language is gio “when he arrived,” is reserved for literary con- essentially the same as that of the students. How- texts, in contrast to the standard rabbinic-based ever, lately some scholars (e.g., Zuckermann) have construction keše- “when” + finite verb, e.g., keše-hu argued that this assumption is mistaken and that higgia. Secondly, many biblical morphological el- the morphological, syntactic, and lexical differences ements are almost entirely unknown in Modern He- between Biblical and Modern Hebrew are such that brew, e.g., the cohortative, jussive, and feminine the two are not mutually intelligible and that Bibli- plural yiqtol/imperative forms. cal Hebrew should therefore be acknowledged and Moreover, Modern Hebrew syntax diverges studied as a separate language. This viewpoint has markedly from that of its biblical ancestor. For ex- led to the recent publication of Tanakh RAM (Ahu- ample, Modern and Biblical Hebrew have radically via), a translation of the Hebrew Bible into Modern differing verbal systems: the former possesses a tri- Hebrew. The appearance of Tanakh RAM sparked a partite structure centered on the qatal (past), qotel heated debate in Israel, with proponents hailing it

Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception vol. 11 Authenticated | [email protected] © Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, 2015 Download Date | 11/25/18 9:00 AM 661 Hebrew Language 662 as a much-needed educational tool, and detractors 101–3). Though there might have been differences arguing that it disparages the strong linguistic between the Hebrew and Greek biblical texts, Au- links between Biblical and Modern Hebrew. gustine attributed the Greek’s deviation from the Hebrew text not to faulty translating, but to divine Bibliography: ■ Agmon-Fruchtman, M./I. Allon, History of the Hebrew Language, the Modern Division: Unit 8, the Revival of inspiration (Gallagher: 207). Therefore, the practice Hebrew (Tel Aviv 1994). [Heb.] ■ Ahuvia, A., Tanakh RAM, of bringing the LXX into agreement with the HB 2 vols. (Hertsliyah 2010–). [Forthcoming] ■ Harshav, B., was opposed by Augustine because to do so would Language in Time of Revolution (Stanford, Calif. 1993). be to erase divinely inspired words (cf. Civ. 15.23; ■ Sáenz-Badillos, Á., A History of the Hebrew Language (Cam- Gallagher: 208). However, Augustine like most bridge 1993); trans. of id., Historia de la lengua hebrea (Barce- Christian thinkers, generally recognized the He- lona 1988). ■ Ullendorff, E., “Could Isaiah Understand the brew language for its biblical and historical signifi- Haarets ?,” in Language, Theology, and the Bible,FS J. Barr (ed. S. E. Balentine/J. Barton; Oxford 1994) 120–34. cance. On this Augustine wrote: ■ Zuckermann, G., “Do Understand the Hebrew Bi- It is called the Hebrew language, which the authority ble?,” The Bible and Critical Theory 6.1 (2010; www.bibleand- of the and Prophets preserved, not only in criticaltheory.org; accessed July 22, 2012). their speech, but also in their sacred writings. (Civ. Lily Kahn 16.11; cf. Gallagher: 136). The remaining tension is, e.g., visible in the transla- IV. Christianity tion and interpretation of Isa 7 : 9b which reads ac- ■ Patristics through Era ■ Modern Europe cording to the Hebrew text: “If you do not stand and America firm in faith, you shall not stand at all” but in the A. Patristics through Reformation Era LXX: “If you will not believe, neither shall you un- Throughout the Patristic period, Christian Middle derstand”. (Comm. Isa. 3.12) knew about this Ages, and the Reformation, a time span overlapping difference and chose permanebitis in the Vg., but largely with the Jewish Middle Ages (ca. 200 or with Augustine (and later Anselm of Canterbury), 500–ca. 1700 CE), the Hebrew language in its writ- the rendering intellegetis became crucial to Christian ten and spoken forms occupied an important place theology in late ancient and medieval times (and in Western and Mediterranean culture. As the chief beyond). Thus, knowledge of Hebrew language did language of the HB as well as the tongue in which not rule out the theological impact of the Greek the Jewish people composed a large part of their LXX which had been established in the first three literature, it lay at the heart of Jewish religious and centuries CE. intellectual life, and played an essential role in Medieval Christian attitudes towards Hebrew Christian biblical scholarship. In addition, Hebrew were ambivalent. Medieval biblical scholars tended idiom and entered other European lan- to agree with Jerome’s principle of the “Hebrew guages via biblical translation and so became part Truth” (Hebraica Veritas) which recognizes the prece- of the Western linguistic heritage. dence of the HB over its translations. For example, By the 3rd century CE a special aura had devel- Theodulf of Orléans (d. 821), in his distrust of some oped around the language. For Jews it was leshon Greek interpretations of the LXX, advocated com- ha-qodesh, “the language of sanctity.” For patristic paring these readings with the Hebraica Veritas as thinkers there was a general consensus that Hebrew well as the Latin translation of the Bible (Ottein: was humanity’s first language and the original lan- 16). The notion, that Hebrew was the language of guage of the Bible (Gallagher: 137). For some Chris- creation, existed too, and scholars such as Andrew tians it was the key to a better understanding of of Saint Victor (ca. 1110–1175), Herbert of Bosham what God truly intended to communicate. The HB, (ca. 1120–ca. 1194), and Nicholas of Lyra (1270– in other words, was the closest one could to 1349) engaged in Hebrew studies by consulting God’s language. Jerome (d. 420) understood the Jewish tutors and texts, such as Rashi and Hebrew- HB, not the LXX, as the translation that conveyed French biblical glossaries. Yet, endemic anti-Jewish the divine word most perfectly, thus calling it the attitudes made suspicious of Jewish exe- Hebraica Veritas. Jerome’s positive acceptance of the gesis and of those co-religionists who studied it. HB was directly influenced by ’s Hexapla. The Council of Vienne in 1312 called for the instal- With his construction of the Hexapla, Origen com- lation of chairs in Hebrew at the universities of Avi- pared, among other things, the Greek LXX against gnon, Bologna, Oxford, Paris, and Salamanca. the original HB. It was this comparison that made Though mostly ignored until the early 16th cen- clear the numerous differences between the two tury, this decree served as justification for later translations. With this, Origen attempted “to heal” scholars’ Christian Hebraist activities. the Greek LXX bringing it closer to the purer text, Humanist scholars such as Giovanni Pico della that is, to the original Hebrew (Gallagher: 180–83). Mirandola (1463–1493), Johannes Reuchlin (1455– Augustine of Hippo (d. 430), on the other hand, 1522), and Desiderius (ca. 1466–1536) en- held that the Greek LXX was the authoritative text couraged Hebrew study and were Hebraists them- of the church, not the HB (cf. Civ. 18.43; Gallagher: selves. During the Reformation Christians’ relation-

Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception vol. 11 Authenticated | [email protected] © Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, 2015 Download Date | 11/25/18 9:00 AM 663 Hebrew Language 664 ship with the language changed profoundly. DSS (from 1948) transformed the study of ancient Considering the learning of Hebrew to be a return Hebrew. Revisions of have incorpo- to the source of Christianity and therefore crucial rated textual data from these discoveries. to church reform, Protestant scholars such as Sebas- b. Lexica. The German dictionary (1829–58) of Wil- tian Münster (1488–1552), Joseph Scaliger (1540– helm Gesenius, father of Hebrew lexicography, was 1609), and Johannes Buxtorf (1564–1629) sought to the basis for the 1907 English lexicon of Brown, raise the standard and distribution of Christian He- Driver, and Briggs, and the 1915 German revision braism, and be less dependent on Jewish exegesis. by Buhl. The 1953 German Koehler-Baumgartner The 16th and 17th centuries saw an explosion of lexicon has been updated and translated into Eng- Hebrew printed book production, including poly- lish (2000), and now Sheffield’s Dictionary of Clas- glot , multilingual dictionaries, and gram- sical Hebrew (1993–2011) seeks to also cover non- and commentaries on the OT. Linguistic biblical ancient Hebrew. analysis and historical criticism of the HB flour- c. Grammars. After Reuchlin’s 1506 grammar in ished, and Semitic Studies as a discipline emerged. Latin, the study of Hebrew advanced little until the Bibliography: ■ Boxel, P. van/S. Arndt (eds.) Crossing Borders: comparative work of Schultens (Institutiones 1737) Hebrew Manuscripts as a Meeting Place of Cultures (Oxford using Arabic. Comparisons with Aramaic, Ethiopic, ■ 2009). Burnett, S. G., Christian Hebraism in the Reformation , Akkadian, and Moabite followed, provid- Era (1500–1660): Authors, Books and the Transmission of Jewish Learning (Leiden 2012). ■ De Visscher, E., “Cross-religious ing lexical and diachronic insights. Bauer and Lean- Learning and Teaching: Hebraism in the Works of Herbert der’s 1922 Historische Grammatik was based on of Bosham and Contemporaries” in Crossing Borders: Hebrew Brockelmann’s Grammatik der semitischen Sprachen Manuscripts as a Meeting Place of Cultures (ed. P. van Boxel/ (1908–13). Gesenius used early results of these com- S. Arndt; Oxford 2009) 123–32. ■ Gallagher, E. L., Hebrew parisons in his influential 1813 reference grammar Scripture in Patristic Biblical Theory: Canon, Language, Text of Hebrew, most recently updated by Kautzsch, (SVigChr 114; Leiden 2012). ■ Goodwin, D., “Nothing in translated into English by Cowley (1910). Berg- Our Histories: A Postcolonial Perspective on Twelfth-Cen- strässer’s total revision of Kautzsch’s work (1918) tury Christian Hebraism,” MedEnc 15.1 (2009) 35–65. ■ Grossman, A., “The School of Literal Jewish Exegesis in was never completed. Because König’s Lehrgebäude Northern ,” in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History (1881–97) was so comprehensive, Joüon wrote his of Its Interpretation, vol. 1/2: The Middle Ages (ed. M. Sæbø; Grammaire (1923) as a bridge between this and in- Göttingen 2000) 321–71. ■ Klepper, D. C., The Insight of Un- troductory grammars. Joüon was updated in Eng- believers: Nicholas of Lyra and Christian Reading of Jewish Text in lish by Muraoka (1991; 2006). In America, the 1990 the Later Middle Ages (Philadelphia, Pa. 2007). ■ McKane, Syntax of Waltke and O’Connor has been influen- ■ W., Selected Christian Hebraists (Cambridge 1989). Ols- tial. Following Saussure, Hebrew study has increas- zowy-Schlanger, J., “Christian Hebraism in Thirteenth-cen- tury England: The Evidence of Hebrew-Latin Manuscripts,” ingly pursued the insights of modern linguistics. in Crossing Borders: Hebrew Manuscripts as a Meeting Place of 2. Teaching. The reformers’ drive to find the pure Cultures (ed. P. van Boxel/S. Arndt; Oxford 2009) 115–22. unadulterated doctrine also drove typically Ameri- ■ Otten, W., “The Texture of Tradition: The Role of the can ideas regarding biblical inspiration: only the in Carolingian Theology,” in The Reception original manuscripts are authoritative. The conse- of the Church Fathers in the West: From the Carolingians to the quent view that interpreters must read the original Maurists, vol. 1 (ed. I. Backus; Leiden 1997) 3–50. ■ Saenz- Badillos, A., A History of the Hebrew Language (trans. J. Ew- languages produced an increased appreciation of olde; Cambridge 1993). Hebrew. In the last seventy years, Catholics have Eva De Visscher increasingly been encouraged to pursue Hebrew studies. Recently, seminaries have been resisting B. Modern Europe and America pressure to reduce Hebrew language requirements The Protestant reformers’ emphasis on Scripture in favor of more practical pastoral training. alone and the humanist impulse to return to the original texts resulted in a reawakening of the Bibliography: ■ Lapide, P., Hebrew in the Church: The Founda- study of Hebrew in modern Europe and America. tions of Jewish-Christian Dialogue (Grand Rapids, Mich. 1984). ■ Lloyd Jones, G., The Discovery of Hebrew in Tudor England: A Since the time of Reuchlin’s Hebrew grammar Third Language (Manchester 1983). ■ Veltri, G./G. Necker, (1506), Protestant translations of the OT into the Gottes Sprache in der philologischen Werkstatt Hebraistik vom 15. languages of modern Europe have normally been bis zum 19. Jahrhundert (Leiden 2004). ■ Waldman, N., The made from the Hebrew rather than from the Latin Recent Study of Hebrew (Winona Lake, Ind. 1989). Vg. For Catholics, this shift from Latin to Hebrew Ken M. Penner became official with a 1943 papal encyclical encour- aging the study of and translation from the origi- V. Literature nal languages. In 1853, the writer Avraham Mapu (1808–1867) 1. Publications. a. Texts. Ben H ayim’s edition (Ven- published what is widely considered to be the first ice 1524–25) was the standard publication of the Hebrew novel. Titled Ahavat Tsiyon (1853, The Love MT until Kittel’s 1906 critical Biblia Hebraica. Dis- of ), the book chronicled events in the time of coveries including the Cairo Genizah (1896), and King and the prophet Isaiah in the style

Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception vol. 11 Authenticated | [email protected] © Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/Boston, 2015 Download Date | 11/25/18 9:00 AM 665 Hebrew Language 666 of romances popular in the period. The book was based on extensive biblical allusion and quotation. hugely successful, but most remarkable was its use Indeed, the extent to which biblical language and of biblical and biblically-inflected Hebrew to a the Bible itself were essential to the development story in a modern style and narrative form: the of led to the exclusion of novel. Mapu was a maśkil, devoted to the principles women, who were usually prohibited from study- of the Jewish Enlightenment, including the desire ing Hebrew or Torah, from the ranks of early He- to return to a “pure” biblical Hebrew uncorrupted brew poets, according to Dan Miron. It was only by outside influences such as Yiddish or Russian. when modernist Hebrew poets began to rebel This embrace of biblical Hebrew as the original, au- against the heavy reliance on biblical language and thentic language of the Jewish people, which origi- allusion that women were accepted among Hebrew nated with the haśkalah, was the impetus for the poets in great numbers. very development of modern , the But modern Jewish writers of the post-enlight- nationalist adoption of modern Hebrew as the lan- enment period also relied on the Hebrew of the Bi- guage of the Jewish people and the Zionist project, ble in less serious, though no less literary, ways. and the eventual creation of the modern Hebrew ’s (1859–1916) Tevye der milkhiker vernacular. (Tevye the daiyrman) tells his stories in a populist Although Jewish tradition had always been fo- Yiddish vernacular peppered with Hebrew quota- cused on Torah as centrally important to Jewish cul- tions and prooftexts from the Bible and commenta- ture and the Jewish way of life, in practice actual ries. These biblical passages are an essential part of knowledge of both Torah and biblical Hebrew was Tevye’s character, an unlearned man who nonethe- discouraged in the pre-modern period. Traditional less navigates and interprets the world through the focused on rote memorization of lens of the foundational texts with which he is fa- biblical passages, with the most intensive study re- miliar. The interplay of archaic biblical Hebrew of served for the Talmud and other biblical commen- Tevye’s prooftexts and the homey, vernacular Yid- taries. By the 19th century, the study of Hebrew dish of his monologues captures some of the com- grammar was the province of the maśkil, the en- plex relationship of Hebrew and Yiddish in modern lightener. Indeed, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858–1922), . credited as the originator of the modern Hebrew The roots of modern Hebrew in the biblical text vernacular, recalls in his autobiography the mo- have also preoccupied some contemporary Hebrew ment when he realized the head of his yeshivah and writers, notably (1924–2000). In his beloved teacher was an enlightener: when he se- his poem “National Thoughts” (Akhshav Baraash, cretly introduced him to a book of Hebrew gram- 1968) Amichai reflects on the uneasy relationship mar and encouraged him to study the language of between modern Hebrew and the language of the the Bible and its meaning (Ben-Yehuda: 19). Bible: Thus, a deep structural understanding of bibli- To talk now in this tired tongue cal Hebrew was at the heart of the creation and es- Torn out of its sleep in the Bible: blinded tablishment of modern Hebrew literature, and re- It totters from mouth to mouth. In a tongue mained central to the development of Hebrew that described  literature long after the haśkalah. Aḥad Ha am Miracles and God, now to say: automobile, (1856–1927) famously articulated the relationship bomb, God. (Amichai: 94) between modern Jewish culture and literature and the traditional texts of Judaism, including the HB, Here, the transformation of the sacred language of in his essay “Torah she-ba-lev” (1894, The Law of the Bible into the quotidian vernacular of a modern the Heart). He argues that the Jewish people “has nation-state is both miraculous and troubling, a surrendered its whole to the written word,” resurrection and a violation. Amichai sums up the specifically the word of biblical proscription and fraught history of Hebrew and the questions it halakhah (Aḥad Haam: 252). He proposes a recon- raises about the coexistence of ancient and modern figured relationship between and in Jewish life. the Bible and other traditional Jewish texts, predi- Bibliography: ■ Aḥad Haam, “The Law of the Heart,” in cated on the idea of “a Judaism which shall have as The Zionist Idea (ed. A. Hertzberg; Philadelphia, Pa. 1997) its focal point the ideal of our nation’s unity, its 251–55. ■ Aleichem, S., Tevye the Dairyman (Masterworks of renascence, and its free development through the 27; Buenos Aires 1966). [Yid.] ■ Ami- expression of universal human values in the terms , Y., “National Thoughts,” in Yehuda Amichai: A Life of of its own distinctive ” (ibid.: 255). Poetry, 1948–1994 (ed. B. Harshav; New York 1994) 94. ■ Ben-Yehuda, E., A Dream Come True (Oxford 1993). Many of the writers of Aḥad Haam’s generation ■ Mapu, A., Love of Zion ( 1853). [Heb.] ■ Miron, D., took his ideas to heart. The Hebrew poet laureate “Why Was There No Women’s Poetry in Hebrew Before and central figure in the Hebrew Revival period, 1920?,” in Gender and Text in Modern Hebrew and Yiddish Litera- H ayim Naḥman Bialik (1873–1934), developed a ture (ed. N. B. Sokoloff et al.; New York 1992) 65–91. highly influential style, known as Bialik’s nusaḥ, Melissa Weininger

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VI. Music Hebrew as the unifying language of the Jewish peo- The destruction of the Second Temple in the year ple gathered from its dispersion. With the fulfill- 70 CE had dire and long-lasting consequences for ment of the prophetic promises of , the Jewish people. The loss of their religious center quotations from those sources became favorites and political autonomy led to a Diaspora that per- among composers creating new music for the Jew- sisted for nearly 2,000 years, and precipitated the ish state, including Uri Tsiyon (Isa 51 : 2) and We- near- of the Hebrew language as Jews adopted Qibbatsti Etkhem (Ezek 11 : 17); others created folk- languages they encountered in their wanderings style songs directly quoting passages describing the around the world. In the wake of that - re-birth of the land itself, like We-Hittifu He-Harim ing tragedy, the rabbis decreed that music, under- Asis ( : 13) and Erets Zavat Ḥalav U-Devash stood as an expression of joy, should be proscribed (quoted repeatedly in Exod, Num, Deut, Josh, and within the Jewish community for all but the most Jer). The popularity and accessibility of these songs limited uses and occasions. Yet, the human spirit helps to sustain the use of the Hebrew language insists upon expressing itself in music, and for the and a continuing connection to the biblical texts Jewish people, the intersection of the Bible – in its outside Israel as well. original Hebrew language – and music was an im- Bibliography: ■ Edelman, M. B., Discovering portant key to maintaining continuity across the (JPS; Philadelphia, Pa. 2003). ■ Regev, M./E. Seroussi, Popu- millennia and across cultural communities. lar Music and National Culture in Israel (Berkeley, Calif. The public reading of the Torah had been intro- 2004). duced as an important part of Jewish life since the Marsha Bryan Edelman return of the exiles in the 6th century BCE (see See also /Hebraism (Christian); /Hebrew “Cantillation”), and over time that “reading” came Inscriptions to incorporate a musical chant that became a neces- sary part of the practice. With the destruction of the Second Temple, (as well as a second- Hebrew Poetry ary reading from the Prophets) continued as a cor- /Poetry nerstone of ritual, but these were not the only intersections of the Bible with Jewish . Jewish communal contains many important Hebrew Script biblical passages, including the Shema and We-Ahav- tah (Deut 6 : 4–9), the (Exod 14 : 30– I. Hebrew Bible/Old Testament II. Second Temple and 15 : 19) and many chapters from the book of Psalms. In addition, most of the “original” liturgical passa- ges composed by the rabbis over the centuries and I. Hebrew Bible/Old Testament incorporated into traditional prayer books since the 1. Introductory Reflections. Script and language 9th century include quotations from biblical texts. are two very different things. For example, the ear- The chanting of these texts – in whatever musical liest inscriptions in the language are style emerged as “traditional” in the various lands written in the Phoenician script. Similarly, the ear- of Jewish dispersion – helped to keep the Jews in liest inscriptions in the ancient contact with their biblical heritage and their an- are written in the Old Hebrew script. Moreover, it cient language, and created an oasis of continuity is the Greek script (primarily) which is used to write for a Jewish people evolving very different customs texts in the ancient Coptic language (e.g., Sahidic strongly influenced by their local environments. Coptic). Of course, it is the ancient that The rebirth of the Hebrew language in the mod- is used to write many of the modern Western lan- ern era was a result of nationalist aspirations that guages, such as French, German, English, Spanish, were expressed in literature (see above, “V. Litera- and Italian. Therefore, as a point of departure, it is ture”) as well as the active that saw the imperative to remember that script and language return of the Jewish people to its ancient are two distinct things. One script (often a “prestige in the late 19th century and the eventual establish- script”) can be used to write multiple different lan- ment of the State of Israel in 1948. Just as the pres- guages. Furthermore, it is very important to re- ence of melody had helped to preserve ancient texts member that most inscriptions in Northwest Se- and practices and facilitated the transmission of mitic can be classified as using a monumental new , so too did music aid in the reincarna- (lapidary) script or a cursive script (and the cursive tion of the ancient tongue. Poetry by Bialik, Tcher- script is often subdivided into two categories, nichovsky and a host of other writers made refer- namely, a formal cursive a free cursive). These clas- ence to the “land of our forefathers,” and the sifications are not hard and fast rules, but general spiritual heritage of the , and these bibli- principles and broad classifications. In terms of de- cal allusions were popularized with folk melodies scriptions, monumental scripts were normally used and new tunes composed expressly to help promote on inscriptions that were commissioned by royalty

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