Away from the Father's House: The Social Location of Naʿar and Naʿarah in Ancient Israel (review)

Abstract

The Jewish Quarterly Review, XCIII, Nos. 3-4 (January-April, 2003) 612-615 Carolyn S. Leeb. Awayfrom the Father's House: The Social Location of Na'ar and Na'arah in Ancient Israel. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 301. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000. Pp. 218. Maimonides (1135-1204) is one of the greatest exegetes of all time. In his compendium of talmudic halakhah, the Mishneh Torah, Maimonides makes the following observation, which every student/scholar of Hebrew Scripture should hang above his or her computer monitor: Sara'at "leprosy" is a term which is applied jointly [to a number of distinct phenomena]. It includes many things that are not similar to each other. Indeed, the white appearance of the skin of a person is called leprosy. The falling out of a small amount of hair of the head or the beard is called leprosy. A change in the appearance of garments or houses is called leprosy. (Mishneh Torah, Uncleanness of Leprosy 16.10) In the same vein, Maimonides points out that numerous Hebrew nouns and verbs are employed in a variety of meanings. For example, he shows (Guide of the Perplexed 1.6) that ishshah can mean a human female (Gen 2:22), the female of any species of living being (Gen 7:22), or any object . . . such as one of a pair of curtains in the tabernacle (Exod 26:3). Likewise , Maimonides notes that the Hebrew term sur can designate a mountain ; a hard stone like flint; a quarry; and, by extension, God, who is a metaphoric quarry. Hence the divine epithet sur Yisra'el "Rock of Israel" (Guide ofthe Perplexed 1.16). Precisely because the ubiquity of homonymous usages of virtually every part of speech in virtually every language is taken for granted by adult native speakers of those languages, discourse employing homonyms takes place on a daily basis with few problems. For example, English speakers compose missives called letters, which, in turn, are composed by writing or typing combinations of twenty-six symbols which are also called letters. Just as accomplished dancers do not have to look at their feet when waltzing , fox-trotting, or tangoing, native speakers of English do not have to consult the dictionary in order not to confuse the twenty-six little symbols with the long missive, since they know that these distinct objects, like house fungus and skin disease, in Leviticus 13-14, share a single term but little else. Maimonides found it necessary to point out again and again the ubiquity of homonymous usages of nouns and verbs in Biblical Hebrew because he LEEB, AWAY FROM THE FATHER 'S HOUSE—GRUBER6 1 3 wrote for an audience whose native speech was Middle Arabic. For Maimonides ' audience, as for all modern students of Biblical Hebrew, it was not immediately apparent that homonymity, which is taken for granted in one's spoken language, also characterizes Biblical Hebrew. In Away from the Father's House: The Social Location of na'ar and na'arah in Ancient Israel, Carolyn S. Leeb points out that standard dictionaries of Biblical Hebrew define na'ar as "boy, lad, youth, servant, retainer (i.e., personal attendant, household servant, follower)"; and na'arah as "girl, damsel, female attendants, maid" (pp. 12-13). This treatment of the term na'ar would seem to be corroborated by the biblical narrative of the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22 where Isaac is referred to as the na'ar "lad" while Abraham's servants are called ne'arim "servants." Rabbinic Judaism's official Aramaic translation, the so-called Targum Onkelos, imitates the Hebrew text's homonymity by employing forms of uleyma "young man" in reference to both Isaac and the two servants. The Hebrew text's use of homonymy is similarly reflected in the Vulgate. Both the Hebrew text and the ancient Aramaic and Latin versions appear to assume that persons familiar with the respective ancient languages will be able to process the terms in question with the same facility that speakers of standard English process the various nuances of the term letter or bill (statement of fees to be paid or mouth of a bird); pen (writing...