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 7th-early 6th cent. bce) “standard biblical Hebrew” poetry.
(2) “Standard biblical Hebrew” (SBH) is the classical literary
language of the 9th-6th 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 9th-6th
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 10th-6th 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-4th cent. bce (the ban seems to have been contravened); and again,
during the Maccabean revolt of the mid-2nd 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 6th cent. bce Judah.
The elements of “transitional” Hebrew contained in these texts do not require
assignment to redactional activity of the 5th 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 6th 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 6th 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 5th 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 9th or 8th 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 6th bce, but could be later. As Edward
Campbell maintained, Ruth is datable to the 8th 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 9th 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 4th-2nd 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 2nd-1st
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.
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.
Posted by: Colin Toffelmire | December 03, 2009 at 08:09 AM
I agree, Colin. For prose, there is the work of Frank Polak. For poetry, I find it harder to think of work to recommend.
Posted by: JohnFH | December 03, 2009 at 09:33 AM