Hebrew component of Jewish English

Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, 2013

This review was published by RBL 2006 by the Society of Biblical Literature. For more information on obtaining a subscription to RBL, please visit http://www.bookreviews.org/subscribe.asp. But although we can establish that the language has in general little significance for the literary history, there is one well-known exception. In the books of Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, Daniel, Esther, and Ecclesiastes, there is one linguistic level that differs clearly from Standard Biblical Hebrew (SBH). We are indebted to A. Hurvitz in particular for his valuable research into Late Biblical Hebrew (LBH). He has gathered together the morphological, syntactical, phraseological, and lexematic characteristics of this linguistic stage and has described its difference from SBH, as well as the features it shares with Qumran Hebrew and Mishnaic Hebrew. The influence of Aramaic on LBH emerged clearly. Hurvitz used this finding to show that the language of the Priestly Code is SBH, not LBH. On the basis of this result, he considers it possible to maintain that the Priestly Code was composed in the preexilic period.

Bulletin for Biblical Research

The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence for the existence of a later linguistic strand within the Hebrew Bible known as late biblical Hebrew. After surveying the history and methodology of the diachronic study of the Hebrew language, I examine orthographic, morphological, and syntactical evidence, which demonstrates a linguistic shift from the preexilic to the postexilic period. I demonstrate how these same late biblical features of the postexilic period became commonplace in Rabbinic Hebrew and in the Hebrew of the Dead Sea Scrolls. I discuss the different views regarding the reasons biblical Hebrew experienced linguistic change and argue that the events of the Babylonian exile contain all the components linguists regard as necessary to account for language change. An appendix is provided which contrasts the fourteen accepted features of late biblical Hebrew with their early biblical Hebrew counterparts.

Review of Biblical Literature, 2004

Journal of Theological Studies, 2005

The book is handsomely presented, although somewhat marred by numerous typographical errors, and could well become a basic textbook on its subject. Modest bibliographies are presented in the footnotes, but the volume overall is well served by copious indexes of authors, texts, and subjects. It deserves to become a well-used handbook, since every chapter provides starting points for further reflection. At times one is left disagreeing with the interpretation given, but probably that simply reflects that no theodicy is altogether likely to prove satisfying.

2023

This volume honors the extraordinary scholarship of Prof. Gary A. Rendsburg, whose work and friendship have influenced so many in the last five decades. Twenty-five prominent scholars from the US, Europe, Israel, and Australia have contributed significant original studies in three of Rendsburg’s areas of interest and expertise: Hebrew language, Hebrew Bible, and Hebrew manuscripts. These linguistic, philological, literary, epigraphic, and historical approaches to the study of Hebrew and its textual traditions serve as a worthy tribute to such an accomplished scholar, and also as an illustration how all of these approaches can complement one another in the fields of Hebrew and Biblical Studies.

“Concluding Reflections,” in: Ian Young (ed.), Biblical Hebrew: Studies in Chronology and Typology (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement 369, T & T Clark, London, 2003), 312–317.

This book seeks to break fresh ground in research on the history of ancient Hebrew. Building on theoretical and methodological concepts in general historical linguistics and in diachronic linguistic research on various ancient Near Eastern and Indo-European languages, the authors reflect critically on issues such as the objective of the research, the nature of the written sources, and the ideas of variation and periodization. They draw on innovative work on premodern scribally created writings to argue for a similar application of a joint history of texts and history of language approach to ancient Hebrew. The application of cross-textual variable analysis and variationist analysis in various case studies shows that more complete descriptions and evaluations of the distribution of linguistic data advances our understanding of historical developments in ancient Hebrew.