Diversity in Pre-Exilic Hebrew

Abstract

Diversity in Pre-Exilic Hebrew, by Ian Young. Forschungen zum Alten Testament 5. Tubingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1993. Pp. xvi + 256. DM 158,00. In this work Ian Young takes on the long-established criterion of language for dating biblical works of uncertain origin. The equation, Aramaisms = late (i.e., postexilic), has often been used to date Joel, Jonah, Job, and Qoheleth. The basis for this criterion is the assumption that linguistic diversity is best explained in terms of chronological stratification. However, numerous discrepancies call this model into question. For example, the internal evidence of Qoheleth, namely, the advice about conduct in the royal court, places Qoheleth in the monarchic period. Young proposes an alternative model for understanding the diversity of Biblical Hebrew exhibited in Job, Qoheleth, Song of Songs, and others. He suggests that Biblical Hebrew goes back to the adaptation of the pre-Israelite Canaanite prestige language. The Canaanite literary language is evident in the Ugaritic corpus and in the Canaanite glosses in the Amarna letters and was used for communication across dialectical lines. The Israelite tribes adopted this language, facilitated by the inclusion within earliest Israel of peoples who were residents of Canaan and thus already acquainted with it. So did the Phoenicians, Moabites, Edomites, and Ammonites, which explains the close similarity of these languages to Biblical Hebrew. Presumably, local dialects going back to Canaanite times persisted in all these areas, including Israel. Thus, from the beginning of Israelite history there were two linguistic strata; literary/formal and dialectical/ colloquial. This situation of diglossia persisted throughout preexilic Israelite history and goes a long way toward explaining both the stability of the literary language and the various instances of linguistic diversity in the biblical texts and in the inscriptions. According to Young, the literary language of the pre-classical period was Archaic Biblical Hebrew, as seen in Judges 5, Exodus 15, and Deuteronomy 32. A remarkable characteristic of this form of Hebrew is its strong Aramaic element. The best explanation for the presence of so many Aramaisms in the early literary language is that they were in the lower (i.e., spoken) form of the language, and that Archaic Biblical Hebrew was open to elements from the underlying dialects. The strong presence of Aramaisms in the oldest Biblical Hebrew undermines the theory that Aramaisms equals late. In contrast to Archaic Biblical Hebrew, Standard Biblical Hebrew emphasized those elements of Canaanite that were non-Aramaic. The standardization of the language coincided with the centralization of government, when officers at the court spoke many different dialects. The standardization of the language also became a vehicle for nationalism, since the avoidance of Aramaic set Israel apart from both the hostile Aramaeans and the hostile Assyrians. Standard Biblical Hebrew spanned the time of the monarchy and remained consistent from the tenth century to the seventh century. Late Biblical Hebrew emerged in a changed linguistic and political situation. In place of the diversity of dialects that characterized preexilic Israel, a single diglossia was established between a literary Biblical Hebrew and a spoken Mishnaic Hebrew. …