Diachrony in Ancient Hebrew

It is largely true that ancient Hebrew texts cannot be dated on the basis of linguistic criteria. Non-linguistic criteria are far more helpful than linguistic criteria in the “dating game.” Nonetheless, when non-linguistic criteria are applied evenhandedly, and the majority of text blocs in the Hebrew Bible are dated accordingly, it becomes possible to delineate a history of the Hebrew language applicable to the periods in question. Diachronic distinctions within ancient Hebrew are possible if the following assumptions are made:

(1) Examples of epic and religious poetry, often or occasionally, regardless of when composed, retain or make use of archaic features that are otherwise unattested in “standard biblical Hebrew” (examples: Gen 49, Ex 15, Numb 23-24, Deut 32 and 33, Jdg 5, Hab 3, Ps 29). On grounds of referential content and literary context, some of these compositions, Jdg 5 for example, would appear to be written in imperfectly preserved “archaic biblical Hebrew” (ABH); others, like Hab 3, deploy archaic features within the context of relatively late (late 7^th-early 6^th cent. bce) “standard biblical Hebrew” poetry.

(2) “Standard biblical Hebrew” (SBH) is the classical literary language of the 9^th-6^th cent. bce. It is preserved in narrative, law, and poetry but not pristinely, in the Primary History (Gen-2 Kgs); in Hosea, Amos, Micah, Isa 1-39, Nahum, Zephaniah, and Habakkuk among the classical prophets; in many of the Psalms and Prov 10-31 among the writings. Historical-critical considerations tip the balance in favor of the proposed time frame of composition of the above texts, each of which is nonetheless heterogeneous. Supplementation in more or less perfect imitation of the linguistic profile of the base text must be allowed for. For example, Num 24:23-24 reads like a vaticinium ex eventu (prophecy after the event) of the Hellenistic period. The 9^th-6^th cent. bce dating of the aforementioned text units, furthermore, does not apply to all aspects of their text. Orthographical, phonological, and morphological detail preserved in the extant manuscript tradition reflects developments that cannot be dated before Hellenistic times, on rare occasions, before Roman times.

(3) Epigraphic Hebrew (EH) represents spoken and administrative Hebrew in Judah of the 10^th-6^th cent. bce; later, after a hiatus in which Hebrew for administrative purposes may not have been permitted, of the time of the anti-Persian revolts of the mid-4^th cent. bce (the ban seems to have been contravened); and again, during the Maccabean revolt of the mid-2^nd cent. bce. Thereafter, with the establishment of the Hasmonean kingdom and beyond its fall, up to and including the Bar Kochba Revolt, Hebrew was employed for a variety of purposes, not exclusively, but alongside of Aramaic and Greek. In EH epistolary texts, colloquialisms unattested in the literary language occur with some frequency.

(4) SBH as attested in Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Lamentations, corpora whose contents are datable with relative certainty on grounds of referential content, is laced with elements of the spoken vernacular of 6^th cent. bce Judah. The elements of “transitional” Hebrew contained in these texts do not require assignment to redactional activity of the 5^th cent. bce or later, assuming that such took place. The linguistic profiles of these books, apart from shared innovations in terms of orthographic, phonological, and morphological features in common with the rest of the Tanakh and datable to the Hellenistic and Roman periods, fit the 6^th cent. bce if that century is held to be transitional linguistically as well as historically.

(5) Based again on considerations of referential content, Obadiah, Isaiah 40-55, 56-66, Haggai, Zechariah 1-9, and Malachi are to be dated, like Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Lamentations, to the 6^th cent. cent. bce. Though other explanations are conceivable, the linguistic profiles of the nine named corpora seem to stand “between” the classical examples of SBH cited earlier, and uncontroversial examples of “Late Biblical Hebrew” listed below.

(6) A number of components of the Hebrew Bible are hard to date with confidence. Prov 1-9 seem to be written in SBH. There are no compelling reasons to date any part of it to the 5^th cent. bce or later. But Prov 1-9 is sometimes dated to the late Persian or early Hellenistic period based on historical-critical considerations. With Francis Andersen, I am inclined to date the book of Job to the 9^th or 8^th cent. bce, though many prefer a Persian period date based on a (tenuous) theory of the history of religious thought in ancient Israel. In any case, Job’s diction and vocabulary set it apart from all other known examples of AH. Jonah is datable to the 6^th bce, but could be later. As Edward Campbell maintained, Ruth is datable to the 8^th bce. The Song of Songs has a linguistic profile all its own. If it is early, consonant with its use of Tirzah, the capital of Israel in the 9^th cent. bce and counterpart to Jerusalem in that time frame only, as a standard of admiration, that would mean that spoken Hebrew at a very early point was characterized by features that become ubiquitous in middle Hebrew. Those linguistic features have led many to class it among the latest works to be found in the Tanakh.

(7) It is relatively uncontroversial that 1-2 Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, Joel 3-4; Zechariah 9-12, Qohelet, Esther, and Daniel are to be dated on grounds of referential content and historical-critical considerations to the 4^th-2^nd cent. bce. The linguistic profiles of these corpora do not constitute a tightly knit unit. They nonetheless all exemplify “Late Biblical Hebrew” (LBH), though that moniker is often used as if 1-2 Chronicles, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Esther alone were in view. Attested linguistic variation in the late Persian and early-to-mid Hellenistic periods is extensive, and only increases when works written in Hebrew in the same period that did not become part of the Tanakh are included, for example, Jubilees and other narrative texts attested at Qumran, which assimilate language and style to classical SBH models, not 1-2 Chronicles; and Ben Sira.

(8) Qumran Hebrew (QH) of the late 2^nd-1^st cent. bce is a many-splendored thing. The Hebrew of the pesharim; of the Hodayot; of the Songs of the Sabbath; of the community rules and the war rule; of 4QMMT, is diverse in nature. It is an interesting laboratory in which to work. Differences in sociolinguistic register and literary genre, not provenance, and not diachrony, must account for all of the linguistic variation.

Is it wise to keep teaching the Hebrew of the Bible as if it were an enclosed garden to be cultivated apart from the encroaching forest of the Hebrew of non-biblical texts written in the same general time frame? I would think not. But if that is true, it’s about time that a reference manual of ancient Hebrew be prepared, in which AH, SBH, EH, and LBH texts, inclusive of Ben Sira and QH, receive equal consideration.

A basic bibliography on this subject matter ought to be published online. I have not had time to put one together to date.

Comments

[Colin Toffelmire]

You note that sociolinguistic register and genre account for much of the variation at Qumran. Should these not also form part of the discussion with regard to the rest of the biblical and extra-biblical evidence? I know it problematizes everything that much more, but still these seem like important issues in a discussion of language variation.

[JohnFH]

I agree, Colin. For prose, there is the work of Frank Polak. For poetry, I find it harder to think of work to recommend.