681 BOEKBESPREKINGEN — HEBREEUWS 682 HEBREEUWS JENNI, Ernst — Die hebräischen Präpositionen. Bd 2: Die Präposition Kaph. Verlag W. Kohlhammer GmbH, Stuttgart, 1994 (23 cm, 195). ISBN 3-17-012688-1. DM/sFr 98,-. This is a sequel to a work by the same author and reviewed in this same journal (53 [1996]:761-63). The reader can only admire the seemingly inexhaustible energy and love and ded- ication to Hebrew philology displayed by Jenni, whose first volume appeared only two years ago, and who informs the reviewer (by way of private communication) that his work on a third volume is at a very advanced stage of preparation. The syntagmatic-semantic study of the preposition of com- parison significantly differs from that of a more abstract preposition Beth. The main purpose of this study is to describe in detail what types of entities can enter a relation- ship of comparability or identity, and precisely what kinds of relationships are indicated by those types of paired correlates. The study, as the first volume, encompasses all 3038 occurrences of the preposition in question including its vari- ant vmK∫. The introduction (pp. 11-38) contains many, highly stim- ulating observations on the statistics, morphology and syntax of the particle. For instande, J. has discovered that the artic- ular Kaph is, in poetry, not less frequently used (in percent- age terms) than in prose (21). Here also the author has classified the logical, semantic relationships between the two terms round the particle Kaf. 683 BIBLIOTHECA ORIENTALIS LVII N° 5/6, September-December 2000 684 He has identified nine major relationships [our necessarily HORBURY, William (ed.) — Hebrew Study from Ezra to approximative English translations added inside the brack- Ben-Yehuda. T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1999 (23 cm, XIV, ets]: Vergleichbarkeit (comparability), Gleichbarkeit 337). ISBN 0-567-08602-X; £ 39.95. (equation), Nachahnung (imitation), Wiederholung (repe- This volume consists mainly of papers read at the 1996 tition), Verwirklichung (realisation), Bewahrheitung meeting of the British Association for Jewish Studies. The (recognition), Befolgung (adherence), Gleichzeitigkeit papers deal with the study of Hebrew from the Persian period (contemporaneity), Maßgleichheit (quantitative compara- to modern times. bility). Each of these nine major categories is further clas- Part I deals with the Second Temple period. In the Persian sified into a neat nine subcategories, amounting to a total period, a thorough knowledge of the Hebrew language is of 81 subcategories. indicated by the production of literary works in a Hebrew that A fundamental problem here with the classification and had an “antique flavour” (Late Biblical Hebrew), the editing description in accordance therewith is that one runs the risk of other works written in (Standard Biblical) Hebrew by of overdoing it, identifying subtle nuances which lie more scribes who partly had Aramaic as their first language, and or less purely within the realm of logical or semantic rela- the text-critical and exegetical activities of the scribes tionships and are barely correlated to grammatical, linguis- (Schaper). In the Hellenistic period Ben Sira's linguistic and tic structures of Hebrew, even at the level of semantics or literary skills demonstrate his command of the language and lexicography. This is obviously due to the fact that, unlike his profound knowledge of the Bible (Aitken). The produc- Beth or Lamedh, the semantic content of the preposition tion of Hebrew texts in the Qumran community reflects con- Kaph is pretty transparent, for it basically denotes proxim- cern for the Hebrew language, but the publication of the Cave ity, whether of quality or of quantity. For instance, J. illus- 4 material, which includes many Aramaic texts, shows that trates the difference between the first two categories by cit- Hebrew was not the only vehicle for religious thought ing Psalm 52.10 “I am like a supple ( a a ) olive-tree in ra{ n n (Campbell). The references to the “ancestral language” in 2 the temple of God” and Amos 2.9 “he was as strong as Maccabees indicate that the Hebrew language was consid- oaks”. According to J., the former indicates general com- ered to be one of the distinctive features of Jewish national parability of the two entities, “I” and “olive-tree” (Vergle- identity (Van Henten). ichbarkeit), whereas the second particularises the compara- Part II discusses rabbinic and early Christian Hebraists. bility down to one feature indicated by the so-called tertium The rabbis probably learned Hebrew by memorisation and , namely the quality of strength. The differ- comparationis literal translation (e.g. Onkelos, Aquila), in the same way as ence is, importantly, correlated to a difference in syntax, their non-Jewish contemporaries learned their languages namely in the first case the propositional phrase is by itself (Latin, Greek, etc.) (Alexander). Jerome's knowledge of the predicate of the nominal clause, whereas in the second Hebrew is illustrated here not by such a well-known work as case the corresponding prepositional phrase is an adverbial his , but by his explica- modifier, or at best, only part of the predicate. This appar- Quaestiones Hebraicae in Genesim tion of the high-priestly vestments in LXIV to a cer- ent significant correlation between semantics and syntax, Epistula tain Fabiola (Hayward). The seven Hebrew/Aramaic words however, vanishes the moment one realises that the first quoted in the fifth- or sixth-century does contain its as part of the prepo- Dialogue of Timothy and tertium comparationis show some familiarity of the authors with Hebrew and sitional phrase, namely the attributive adjective which indi- Aquila Aramaic. The material included in this dialogue may have cates the feature of vitality. It is not true that the poet is originated in Palestinian Jewish-Christian circles in which ascribing to himself “ein mehr oder weniger großes Bündel Aramaic was spoken and, at times, used alongside Hebrew von typischen semantischen Merkmalen …, die zu den in scriptural discussions with the Jews (Lahey). Sixteenth- Merkmalen eines saftigen Ölbaums im Tempelbezirk century printings of the gospel of Matthew in Hebrew reflect gehören” (30). It is not about the features of “saftiger the revival of Hebrew study in the early modern period. The Ölbaum”, but the feature “saftig”. study of Aramaic/Syriac as “the vernacular of Jesus” came As in the first volume, here also one notes that a large to flourish as well (Horbury). This article on the Hebrew number of biblical passages are discussed in an illuminating gospel is included in the section “rabbinic and early Christ- fashion, which cannot but interest every bible exegete. ian Hebraists”, because it also discusses the possibility that The reader is advised to refer to vol. one for the author's there was a collection of the sayings of Jesus in Aramaic dur- general approach. The second volume is also provided ing the first centuries of the Common Era, as is suggested by with an indispensable, exhaustive index of passages, fur- early Christian traditions concerning a version of Matthew's ther enriched by a second index according to lexemes gospel “in the Hebrew language”. attached to the preposition Kaph. Results of the author's Part III deals more broadly with the knowledge of Hebrew investigation had been partly published in 2 (1989) ZAH in the Roman and Byzantine empires. In the western Roman 14-44 and ib. 3 (1990) 133-66, which could be usefully empire of the sixth century there is a considerably increased consulted. attestation of the use of Hebrew in Jewish epitaphs. The We are all indebted to Prof. Jenni for this extremely use- “hebraisation” in the sixth century was a prerequisite for the ful and stimulating piece of work and wish him well with his use of Hebrew as a literary language from ca. 800 (Noy). The work on the forthcoming volume in the series. position of Hebrew in the Byzantine empire is a neglected part of the history of the Hebrew language. Admittedly, there are Leiden, May 2000 T. MURAOKA only a few testimonies indicating that Hebrew was used in this period, but the creation of literary works such as the piyyutim ** and the use of Hebrew in biblical study show that the language * must have been the object of intense study (De Lange). 685 BOEKBESPREKINGEN — JUDAICA 686 Part IV contains two articles on the most important con- Hebrew language and Jewish identity, the importance of tribution of the Karaites to Hebrew studies. One deals with Hebrew for biblical studies, which created a link between the use of Hebrew in Karaite legal contracts, which contain Jewish and non-Jewish study of Hebrew, the importance of both biblical and post-biblical Hebrew elements (Olszowy- access to Hebrew through other languages spoken by Jews, Schlanger), the other with the background and development and the process of learning Hebrew with the aids available of the Karaite grammatical tradition, its origin in the in various periods. masoretic tradition, and the influence of Arabic grammatical The volume under discussion deals with the study of thought (Khan). Hebrew (not restricted to Biblical Hebrew) in a period of Part V focuses on Christian Hebraists in mediaeval and more than two millennia. Both the wide scope of the subject early modern Europe. The knowledge of Jewish exegesis and the form of the book (a collection of papers) entail a among Christian scholars can be traced back to the twelfth- selective treatment. Thus the early Christian author Origen,