Biblical Hebrew

history

Biblical Hebrew, also called Classical Hebrew, is the archaic form of the Hebrew language in which the Hebrew Bible and various Israelite inscriptions were written.

It is not spoken in its pure form today, although it is often studied by Jews, Christian theologians, linguists, and Israeli archaeologists to help them gain a deeper understanding of the Hebrew Bible and Semitic philology. Classical Hebrew is also generally taught in public schools in Israel.

Biblical Hebrew and modern Hebrew differ with respect to grammar, vocabulary, and phonology. Although Modern and Biblical Hebrew's grammatical laws often differ, Biblical Hebrew is sometimes used in Modern Hebrew literature, much as archaic and Biblical constructions are used in Modern English literature.

Definition

This article describes the Biblical dialects of Hebrew. These flourished between the 12th and 6th centuries BCE and comprise all of the Hebrew Bible but for several Aramaic sections and isolated loanwords.

Hebrew (עִבְרִית ‛ivrīṯ, modern pronunciation ivrit) comes from the Hebrew for "to pass over" (root עבר, e.g. לְעַבָר lə‘ăvār "to pass over", עֵבֶר ‛ēvẹr "yonder (side)"). This is most likely a reference to the Hebrews being the ones who "passed over" the Jordan River.

The precise meaning of the term Biblical Hebrew varies with context and may refer to any of the following:

all Hebrew dialects found in the Hebrew Bible, including the proposed diachronic Archaic Biblical, Biblical, and Late Biblical Hebrew dialects or the proposed synchronic Judahite (southern) and Israelian (northern) Hebrew dialects
the Hebrew of only the corpus of the Hebrew Bible itself, not including other texts - such as inscriptions - that use related Hebrew dialects
Tiberian Hebrew, also called Masoretic Hebrew, which is an early-medieval vocalization of the Hebrew Bible's ancient consonantal text

From a linguistic point of view, the Classical Hebrew language is usually divided into two periods: Biblical Hebrew, and Roman Era Hebrew, having very distinct grammatical patterns.

Biblical Hebrew is further divided into the so called 'Golden Age' Hebrew (before 500 BCE) and 'Silver Age' Hebrew (500 BCE to 60 BCE). Silver Age Hebrew has many borrowings from Aramaic, for example the use of the conditional particle '''''' (אִלּוּ) replacing '''''' (לוּ). Another shibboleth between the two is the use of the relative pronoun {əsher} (אֲשֶר) (introducing a Restrictive clause, 'that') in the earlier period, being replaced with the clitic ʃe- (-שֶ) in the later, both being used in Mishnaic and Modern Hebrew.

Roman Era Hebrew, or Mishnaic Hebrew, was further influenced by Greek and Persian, mainly through the dialect of Aramaic which was the Lingua franca of the area at the time.

Modern adaptions of Classical Hebrew are in active use today, mostly in the form of various modern Jewish dialects of Hebrew, as well as Samaritan Hebrew language, which is used primarily by the Samaritans.

As Biblical-Hebrew vocalization is derived from the Masoretic system applied to ancient texts, Biblical Hebrew is somewhat a mixture of these elements. It is the mixed language that is discussed in this article.

Most words in Biblical Hebrew are derived from a three "letter" root ("letter" here refers to the consonantal portion of basic words--a better way of looking at the Hebrew word is as a construction of three syllables, each beginning with a consonant and where certain syllables may have "null" vowels) usually a verb form given in the Qal perfect 3rd masculine singular form. There are exceptions to this rule though most of these are loan words from non-Semitic roots. For most English speaking readers who use the Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon it is this three letter root word that must be looked up to find a definition.

The standard Hebrew Text for scholarly study is the Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, edited by Rudolf Kittel.

Descendant languages

Samaritan Hebrew language (liturgical)
Mishnaic Hebrew language (Jews)
Tiberian Hebrew language (liturgical)
Yemenite Hebrew language (liturgical)
Sephardi Hebrew language (liturgical)
Ashkenazi Hebrew language (liturgical)
Modern Hebrew (State of Israel)

Phonology ==

The phonology as reconstructed for Biblical Hebrew is as follows:

Consonants

{| class="wikitable" |- | Name || Letter || Phoneme and Allophone () |- | '''' || || |- | '''' || || - allophonically¹ |- | gîmel || || allophonically¹ |- | '''' || || allophonically¹ |- | hē '' || || , null at the end of words.² |- | wāw || || , null after or ² |- | zayin|| || |- | <'strong>|| || , (³) |- | || || |- | '''' || || , null after , , or ² |- | '''' || , || - allophonically¹ |- | '''' || || |- | mēm || , || |- | nûn || , || |- | '''' || || |- | '' || || , (³) |- | pēh || , || - allophonically¹ |- | '''' || , || |- | '''' || || (or ) |- | rēšh || || (trilled like in Arabic) |- | śhînšîn || || , s, |- | tāph || || - allophonically¹ |}

Begedkefet spirantization developed sometime during the lifetime of Biblical Hebrew under the influence of Aramaic.Or perhaps Hurrian, but this is unlikely, c.f. Dolgoposky 1999, pp. 72-73. Its terminus post quem can be found by noting that the Old Aramaic phonemes θ, ð disappeared in the 7th century BC.Dolsopolsky 1999, p. 72. Its terminus ante quem in Hebrew is the 2nd century CE.Dolgopolsky 1999, p. 73. It is unclear whether they should be considered allophones or separate phonemes, since after a certain development of schwa minimal pairs became theoretically possible (if almost unattested).Dolgopolsky 1999, p. 74.
mater lectionis
These merged with ħ, ʕ respectively at some stage, but from Greek transcriptions it is clear that they were distinguished at some point in the life of Classical Hebrew (e.g. Gaza vs. Ezra). It is unlikely that this merger occurred after begedkefet spirantization, or else , and , would have to be contrastive, which is cross-linguistically rare.

Vowels

The original Hebrew alphabet consisted only of consonants and vowel letters (see Semitic languages). The vowel signs and pronunciation (known as vowel pointings) currently accepted for Biblical Hebrew were created by scholars known as Masoretes after the 5th century AD. These scholars are thought also to have standardized various dialectal differences.

However, it is clear that Classical Hebrew's vowel inventory was not identical to that notated by the Masoretes. For instance, e and ē were both indicated with a tzeire in the Masoretic text, but in Greek transcription (LXX, Origen, etc.) are written with epsilon and eta respectively. This is also backed up by etymological and internal data.Dolgopolsky 1999, p. 14.

Historical sound changes

Consonantism

As Biblical Hebrew (BH) evolved from Proto-Semitic (PS) it underwent a number of mergers,G. Bergsträsser. (1983). Introduction to the Semitic Languages. Translated by Peter T. Daniels. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns.Dolgopolsky 1999, pp. 57-59.:

PS * and * merged as BH
PS * and * merged as BH
PS *, *, and * merged as BH
PS * and * merged as BH ¹⁾
PS * and * merged as BH ¹⁾
PS * and * merged as BH in word-initial position; > Ø between vowels
PS * > BH Ø (with compensatory lengthening) in the syllable coda
PS *- > BH - in the ending of the feminine; not in the status constructus).
PS * > BH Ø between vowels in the pronominal suffix (with contraction, see below).
PS * > BH in grammatical morphemes
PS *n,mC > BH CC, e.g. *ʔanta>*ʔattāh
- exception: PS *-inʃ- > BH -iːʃ(-), *-anʃ- > BH -anʃ-, and in grammatical morphemes *-ˈVnʃ- > BH -nn-

: 1) Greek transcriptionssee also provide evidence that Biblical Hebrew maintained the proto-Semitic consonants , for longer than the writing system might suggest. Thus '''' (עֲמוֹרָה) is transcribed as '''' () in Greek, whereas '''' (עֵבֶר) is transcribed as '''' () with no intrusive g; since comparative Semitic evidence shows that proto-Semitic * and * both became ʿayin (ע) in later Hebrew, this suggests that the distinction was still maintained in Classical times. Similarly '''' (רָחֵל) is transcribed as '''' (), whereas '''' (יִצְחָק) becomes '''' ().

Vocalism

PS * > BH ; in word-final position >
PS * > BH
PS * > BH or, before ה ח ע, (<'strong>);

: in word-final position regularly >

PS * > BH or, before ה ח ע, ()
PS * > BH
PS * > BH ;

: in an open syllable before a following * > BH

PS * > Ø in word-final position
PS * in open unstressed syllables > Ø ("") two or more syllables before the stressed syllable;

: before or after א ה ח ע > ("") or, if the adjacent syllable has or , ("") and ("") respectively; :in verbs also in the second syllable of the word if the following syllable is stressed; :in nouns in the second syllable of status constructus > (the consonant carrying the is marked with "" or the following consonant is fricative, indicating that it was preceded by a vowel).

PS * > BH in open syllables (sometimes , )
PS * > BH Ø;

: immediately before the stress > (””); : in closed syllables >

PS * > BH or, before ה ח ע, ("");

: in closed syllables in verbal forms > or, before ה ח ע, ; : in syllables that were closed already in Proto-Semitic > ("Philippi's law")

PS * > BH or, before or after ה ח ע, ;

: immediately before the stress > ("")

PS * > BH Ø ("") or (””);

: in closed syllables > ("") or, before a geminated consonant,

PS * > BH
PS * > BH
PS * > BH or in an open syllable, or, in word-final position,
PS * > BH
Contractions after loss of PS * in the pronominal suffix:

: * > : * > : * > : * > : * > : * > : * > : * >

Resources

Bonnie Pedrotti Kittel, Vicki Hoffer, and Rebecca Abts Wright, Biblical Hebrew: A Text and Workbook Yale Language Series; New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989.
- Kautzsch, E. (ed.), Eng. ed. A. E. Cowley. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910.
Lambdin, Thomas O. Introduction to Biblical Hebrew. London: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971.
Würthwein, Ernst. The Text of the Old Testament (trans. Erroll F. Rhodes) Grand Rapids: Wm.B.Eardmans Publishing. 1995. ISBN 0-8028-0788-7.

Notes

ISBN 1-56563-206-0 Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon by Francis Brown, S. Driver, C. Briggs

External links

History of the Hebrew Language

Biblical Hebrew Resources
- »Resources for the Study of Biblical Hebrew Prof. E. Ben Zvi University of Alberta
- [http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=269748&kw=269748&en=froogle&p=1013824&cm_mmc=CBDfeeds
  -froogle
  -books
  -269748, Hebrew Reader's Bible], Brown and Smith, complete with Hebrew vocabulary of every word used 50 times or less; all proper names in gray color type.
- »Biblical Hebrew bibliography and transliteration, Matthew Anstey

Grammar and Vocabulary
- »The Handy-Dandy Hebrew Grammar Chart, Prof. Shawn Madden, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
- »Basic Biblical Hebrew Grammar (introductory)
- »The Kittel Hebrew Words Database (Second Ed.) Learn by use of flashcards 490 important Biblical Hebrew words.
- »Learn to write the Hebrew characters
- [http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?r=1&ISBN=9789004123519&ourl=The%2DHebrew%2Dand%2DAramaic%2DLexicon%2Dof%2Dthe%2DOld%2DTestament%2Don%2DCD%2DROM%2FL%2DKoehler, HALOT (Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament)], the standard lexicon for in depth Hebrew studies. Available electronically from [http://www.logos.com/products/details/1455, Logos Bible Software] and [http://accordancebible.org, Accordance].
- [http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=hebrew+aramaic+lexicon+old+testament&hl=en&cid=5265194929805904578&sa=title#p, A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament ed. William Lee Holladay, Ludwig Köhler, Walter Baumgärtner], the standard for a concise Hebrew Lexicon; helpful and exhaustive enough for most Hebrew studies.

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