Chavoux: On Tue, Jul 16, 2013 at 1:43 AM, Chavoux Luyt <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi Karl > > On 16 July 2013 05:43, <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Send b-hebrew mailing list submissions to >> [email protected] >> >> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- >> From: K Randolph <[email protected]> >> <snip> >> By the way, can you document any changes that happened to Biblical Hebrew >> language during the 800 years from Moses to Nebuchadnezzar when it was a >> natively spoken language? >> > First off, it is known from surrounding ANE countries that scribes > normally updated the language (grammar, spelling and sometimes vocabulary) > when they copied a previous work. Understanding was more important than > keeping archaisms. So it is reasonable that the same process happened in > Biblical Hebrew. > Reasonable, but still speculation. Would the temple scribes have put up with such? Was the careful copying an innovation during the DSS period, or a continuation of a practice from before? > I also think it would be good to compare the spelling used in the tunnel > of Hezekiah to that used in our later copies of the Tanach. If I remember > correctly, there is much less use of plene spelling (matres lectionis). > I have an electronic copy of the Siloam Inscription—except for one word, where I think many scholars are wrong in saying “fire” should be “man”—the rest of the “matres lectionis” uses are entirely consistent with pre-Babylonian uses in Tanakh. > I would assume that even though some archaisms survived in the older > texts, most of the language would be updated as was normal at the time. > Israel, when it followed Tanakh, was different in other ways, why not this way too? > One glaring example of change is the use of the male הוא (hu) for females > instead of היא (hi) found only in the Torah and in none of the later books. > I thought this pattern was more widespread than this. There are stylistic differences that are noticeable, but what I’m looking for are linguistic changes. > > Shalom > Chavoux Luyt > > Thanks, Chavoux. Karl W. Randolph.
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