Diversity in Pre-Exilic Hebrew (review)

Abstract

Hebrew Studies 36 (1995) 135 Reviews teousness" (p. 61). The passage in context stresses that it is God's action that enables the suppliant to walk in God's path "in righteousness." Yet Ho's comment, "Only by taking the right path and being a blameless person..... seems to contradict the text by implying that "righteousness" accrues to the suppliant through his own choice and efforts toward perfection. These two and many similar passages suggest that in biblical thought "righteousness," the essential quality of God, also accrues to people due to God's activity, not through human striving. This book is praiseworthy for its examination of two biblical terms denoting "righteousness" and for stimulating the reader to further reflection upon this vital biblical theme. Christopher W. Mitchell Concordia Publishing House St. Louis, MO 63JJ8 DIVERSITY IN PRE-EXILIC HEBREW. By Ian Young. Forschungen zum Allen Testament 5. Pp. xv + 256. Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1993. In a recent article, I wrote: ''To all who have ever undertaken the linguistic study of the Hebrew Bible, it is abundantly clear that the text bristles with an inordinate number of grammatical peculiarities. Although I have no empirical evidence to substantiate the following statement, my sense is that on a relative scale one encounters more such difficulties in the Hebrew Bible than in comparable corpora, for example, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, the Qur'an, the Avesta, Assyrian annals, etc." (Rendsburg, "Morphological Evidence for Regional Dialects in Ancient Hebrew," in Linguistics and Biblical Hebrew, W. R. Bodine, ed. [Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1992] pp. 65-88, in particular p. 65). Naturally, much of the diversity alluded to in the above quotation stems from the fact that the Bible is an anthology of literature spanning about one thousand years. The language behind these texts changed over time, and scholars thus divide Biblical Hebrew into different periods, typically called Archaic, Standard, and Late. But the diversity resulting from diachronic change is only part of the picture. For notwithstanding the very serious problem of fixing the date of numerous parts of the Bible, it is clear that roughly contemporary books or Hebrew Studies 36 (1995) 136 Reviews , chapters also reveal diverse language usage. Compare, for example, Judges 5 and Exodus IS, both presumably composed in Archaic Biblical Hebrew; or Hosea and Isaiah, both presumably composed in Standard Biblical Hebrew. The above picture stands as the springboard from which Ian Young launches his research in Diversity in Pre-Exilic Hebrew. As the title of the book implies, Young is not overly concerned with the issue of Late Biblical Hebrew-he takes it as proved that this brand of Hebrew is different from Standard Biblical Hebrew-rather, he is concerned with the diversity witnessed in the language's Archaic and Standard layers. This diversity can be explained, argues Young, by redefining what we mean by the term "Biblical Hebrew," by looking at the origins of the Hebrew language, and by taking into account various sociological and historical factors concerning the people of ancient Israel. Young begins his treatment with a discussion of the pre-Israelite period in greater Canaan and concludes that "Ugaritic and Amama Canaanite are northern and southern variations of the same basic literary tradition" (p. 10). Lying behind this basic literary tradition is what Young terms the "prestige language" of greater Canaan, which united the very diverse population of the region. Thus, "while Akkadian operated as a prestige language on the international level, the 'Canaanite' language existed for local communication, and as a vehicle for literature" (p. 10). A first millennium dialect such as Hebrew (likewise Phoenician) is "a continuation of the pre-Israelite literary prestige language of Syria-Palestine" (p. 11). Young relates the diverse historical origins of the nation of Israel to this scheme. He reviews the biblical evidence, which points to a multitude of streams (Aramean [Patriarchs], Egyptian [Lev 24:10], Midianite [Hobab], Kenizzite [Caleb, Othniel], Canaanite [Asher, Gibeon, etc.], Sea Peoples [Dan], etc.) coming together to form the Israelite nation. He assumes that "the Israelites spoke a widely divergent variety of dialects in the late second millennium Be" (p. 16; italics mine), but that Biblical Hebrew served the function...