Studies in Rabbinic Hebrew
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Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures Heijmans Studies in Rabbinic Hebrew Studies in Rabbinic Hebrew Shai Heijmans (ed.) EDITED BY SHAI HEIJMANS This volume presents a collec� on of ar� cles centring on the language of the Mishnah and the Talmud — the most important Jewish texts (a� er the Bible), which were compiled in Pales� ne and Babylonia in the la� er centuries of Late An� quity. Despite the fact that Rabbinic Hebrew has been the subject of growing academic interest across the past Studies in Rabbinic Hebrew century, very li� le scholarship has been wri� en on it in English. Studies in Rabbinic Hebrew addresses this lacuna, with eight lucid but technically rigorous ar� cles wri� en in English by a range of experienced scholars, focusing on various aspects of Rabbinic Hebrew: its phonology, morphology, syntax, pragma� cs and lexicon. This volume is essen� al reading for students and scholars of Rabbinic studies alike, and appears in a new series, Studies in Semi� c Languages and Cultures, in collabora� on with the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge. As with all Open Book publica� ons, this en� re book is available to read for free on the publisher’s website. Printed and digital edi� ons, together with supplementary digital material, can also be found here: www.openbookpublishers.com Cover image: A fragment from the Cairo Genizah, containing Mishnah Shabbat 9:7-11:2 with Babylonian vocalisat on (Cambridge University Library, T-S E1.47). Courtesy of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. Cover design: Luca Baff a ebook 2 ebook and OA edi� ons also available OPEN ACCESS OBP To access digital resources including: blog posts videos online appendices and to purchase copies of this book in: hardback paperback ebook editions Go to: htps://www.openbookpublishers.com/product/952 Open Book Publishers is a non-proft independent initiative. We rely on sales and donations to continue publishing high-quality academic works. STUDIES IN RABBINIC HEBREW Studies in Rabbinic Hebrew Edited by Shai Heijmans https://www.openbookpublishers.com © 2020 Shai Heijmans. Copyright of individual chapters is maintained by the chapters’ authors. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text and to make commercial use of the text providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information: Shai Heijmans (ed.), Studies in Rabbinic Hebrew. Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2020, https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0164 In order to access detailed and updated information on the license, please visit, https:// doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0164#copyright Further details about CC BY licenses are available at, https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/ All external links were active at the time of publication unless otherwise stated and have been archived via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine at https://archive.org/web Updated digital material and resources associated with this volume are available at https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0164#resources Every effort has been made to identify and contact copyright holders and any omission or error will be corrected if notification is made to the publisher. Semitic Languages and Cultures 2. ISSN (print): 2632-6906 ISSN (digital): 2632-6914 ISBN Paperback: 978-1-78374-680-4 ISBN Hardback: 978-1-78374-681-1 ISBN Digital (PDF): 978-1-78374-682-8 ISBN Digital ebook (epub): 978-1-78374-683-5 ISBN Digital ebook (mobi): 978-1-78374-684-2 ISBN XML: 978-1-78374-768-9 DOI: 10.11647/OBP.0164 Cover image: A fragment from the Cairo Genizah, containing Mishnah Shabbat 9:7-12:4 with Babylonian vocalisation (Cambridge University Library, T-S E1.47). Courtesy of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. Cover design: Luca Baffa CONTENTS Introduction 1 Shai Heijmans 1. Rabba and Rava, ʾAbba and ʾAva: Spelling, 5 Pronunciation and Meaning Yochanan Breuer 1. Introduction 5 2. The dagesh 8 3. Eastern Aramaic 9 4. Western Aramaic 12 5. Mishnaic Hebrew 13 6. Babylonian Aramaic 15 7. Mishnaic Hebrew — a bridge between Western 18 and Eastern Aramaic Appendix: Did the distinction of spelling survive in 19 the manuscripts? 2. The Vocalisation of MS Cambridge of the Mishnah: 25 An Encounter Between Traditions Yehudit Henshke Nusaḥ: textual variants 29 Phonology 31 Morphology 38 Orthography: Homographs 46 Ketiv and qere 50 Foreign Words 54 Conclusion 56 vi Studies in Rabbinic Hebrew 3. Adjacency Pairs and Argumentative Steps in the 57 Halakhic Give-and-Take Conversations in the Mishnah Rivka Shemesh-Raiskin 1. The discourse unit of the halakhic give-and- 57 take conversation and its features 2. A description of two aspects drawn from 66 conversation analysis 2.1 Adjacency pairs in the halakhic give-and- 68 take conversations in the Mishnah 2.2 Argumentative steps in the halakhic give- 74 and-take conversations in the Mishnah 4. Tannaitic Aramaic: Methodological Remarks and a 97 Test Case Christian Stadel 5. Rabbinic Entries in R. Judah Ibn-Tibbon’s 119 Translation of Duties of the Hearts Barak Avirbach 1. Introduction 119 2. The nominal lexicon in Ibn-Tibbon’s translation 122 of Duties of the Hearts 3. Rabbinic entries in Ibn-Tibbon’s translation of 124 Duties of the Hearts 3.1 Biblical lexemes with rabbinic meanings 125 3.2 Rabbinic lexemes with rabbinic meanings 128 3.3 Rabbinic lexemes with both rabbinic and 133 new meanings 3.4 Rabbinic lexemes with new meanings 137 3.5 Root and stem combination: Rabbinic 140 roots 3.6 Linear word-formation: Rabbinic stems 146 4. Conclusion 151 Contents vii 6. The Distinction between Branches of Rabbinic 155 Hebrew in Light of the Hebrew of the Late Midrash Yehonatan Wormser 7. Two Textual Versions of Psiqata of the Ten 169 Commandments Shlomi Efrati Appendix: Text and translation of PsTC 2 (= PsR 22, 188 111b) 8. Vowel Reduction in Greek Loanwords in the 193 Mishnah: The Phenomenon and Its Signifcance Shai Heijmans 1. Introduction 193 2. Vowel reduction 195 2.1 Reduction in open pretonic syllables 196 2.2 Exceptions: vowel reduction in non- 198 pretonic syllables 3. Discussion and conclusions 199 Contributors 203 Colophon 207 Index 209 INTRODUCTION The present volume contains eight articles on topics related to Rabbinic Hebrew. Seven out of the eight are revised versions of papers read at the Rabbinic Hebrew Workshop that was held at the University of Cambridge on the 5th and 6th of July, 2016. The eighth, my own article, is a translated and revised chapter from my doctoral dissertation. Since the establishment of the Regius Chair of Hebrew by Henry VIII in 1540 the study of Hebrew has occupied a permanent place in the Cantabrigian curriculum.1 As might be expected, Rabbinics and Rabbinic Hebrew were of lesser interest to the academic community in Cambridge than Biblical Hebrew, at least during the frst fve centuries of the University’s existence. But the second half of the 19th century saw important developments which secured Cambridge’s place on the world map of Rabbinic studies: in 1875 Schiller-Szinessy was appointed Reader in Talmudic and Rabbinic literature; in 1877 Charles Taylor, the Master of St. John’s College, published the Hebrew text of Tractate Aboth from Codex Cambridge of the Mishnah with an English translation; in 1883 Wlliam Henry Lowe published the entire text of the Cambridge Mishnah codex; and in 1890 Solomon Schechter was appointed as Schiller-Szinessy’s successor, in which capacity, a few years 1 The study of Hebrew in Cambridge had begun even before that. For example, the statutes of St. John’s College from 1524 and 1530 made provision for a lecturer in Hebrew (at an annual salary of £4–£5) to tutor the senior students each day. In fact, in 1535 and again in 1537 the lectureship in mathematics had to be suspended to provide the salaries for the Hebrew and Greek lecturers; see Stefan C. Reif, Hebrew Manuscripts at Cambridge University Library, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 3. Whether the University would nowadays prioritise thus is unclear. © Shai Heijmans, CC BY 4.0 https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0164.09 2 Studies in Rabbinic Hebrew later, he examined the genizah of the Ben-Ezra synagogue in Cairo — a collection that after its transfer to Cambridge would have an unparalleled impact on the world of Rabbinic studies in general and Rabbinic Hebrew in particular. It is my hope that this volume will be an additional contribution to Cambridge’s long and distinguished history of Hebrew research. The modern academic study of Rabbinic Hebrew, which originated in the frst half of the 20th century with Moses Hirsch Segal’s seminal article on Mishnaic Hebrew and his subsequent Grammar of Mishnaic Hebrew,2 shifted to the new-born state of Israel in the second half of that century. The ground-breaking works of Jacob Nahum Epstein, Hanoch Yalon and Eduard Yechezkel Kutscher, as well as the works that followed them, were and continue to be written almost exclusively in Modern Hebrew,3 making the feld quite inaccessible to those unfamiliar with the language. Fortunately, the situation seems to be changing, and works on Mishnaic Hebrew appear more often in English. Special mention should be made to the volume of collected articles in the 37th instalment of Scripta Hierosolymitana, edited by Bar- Asher and Fassberg, and to the proceedings volume of the Yale Symposium on Mishnaic Hebrew, edited by Bar-Asher Siegal and Koller.4 2 Moses Hirsch Segal, “Mišnaic Hebrew and its Relation to Biblical Hebrew and to Aramaic”, Jewish Quarterly Review (Old Series) 20 (1908), pp.