Can Biblical Texts be Dated Linguistically? Chronological Perspectives in the Historical Study of Biblical Hebrew

Abstract

One of the outstanding contributions of nineteenth century scholarship to the modern study of the Old Testament (OT) in the domain of Lower Criticism was the establishing of an historical approach to the linguistic study of Biblical Hebrew (BH). The criterion of Extra-Biblical Sources is equally insufficient by itself, since isolated Aramaisms and Mishnaisms may turn up sporadically in earlier biblical texts as well. Finally, Linguistic Opposition alone is indecisive, since both the usage examined and its classical counterpart(s) may be regarded as, stylistically synonymous and chronologically contemporary elements, existing in the language side by side. The role of Extra-Biblical Sources is to ensure that the linguistic features and phenomena which turn out to be characteristic of late writings within the Hebrew Bible do indeed reflect late usages current in the linguistic milieu of the post-classical era as a whole. Keywords: Aramaisms; biblical texts; Hebrew Bible; historical approach; linguistic milieu; Mishnaisms; Old Testament