Aramaic Sources Research Articles

Bloodletting in Babylonia Revisited

The question of bloodletting in Babylonia (and surgery in general) has hardly been studied, since evidence is sparse, while at the same time bloodletting in the Babylonian Talmud has been assumed to have been employed, although based upon questionable medieval interpretations of vague and doubtful terminology. However, when descriptions from cuneiform medicine are combined with evidence from Aramaic sources, a somewhat clearer picture emerges of a possible limited use of a bloodletting procedure in Babylonia, in both earlier and later periods.

Greckie wyrazy βόρατον, βράθυ, βουρί jako przykłady zapożyczenia wielokrotnego

The paper discusses three Ancient Greek appellatives βόρατον, βράθυ, βουρί denoting conifers from the Cupressaceae family and demonstrates a common Semitic origin of these dendronyms. They should be treated as examples of multiple borrowing, the ultimate source of which was the uniform Proto-Semitic archetype *burāṯ- ‘juniper, Juniperus L.’. It should be assumed that the ancient Greeks borrowed two synonymous terms βόρατον n. ‘stinking juniper, Juniperus foetidissima Willd.; savin juniper, Juniperus sabina L.’ and βράθυ n. ‘id.’ from two different Aramaic sources. On the other hand, the Pamphylian dialectism βουρί n. ‘Mediterranean cypress, Cupressus sempervirens L.’ was borrowed from an Akkadian source via Anatolian languages to Ancient Greek (Gk. Pamph. βουρί n. ‘cypress’ ← Lycian *burhi < *burehi < Luwian *burašiš c. ← Assyrian or Akkadian burāšu ‘(Phoenician) juniper’ < Old Akkadian burāšum ‘juniper’ < Proto-Semitic *burāṯ-). A carefully conducted analysis of lexical data clearly demonstrates that language contacts between the Semites and the Greeks took place at different times and in many places, so potential Semitisms could have gradually penetrated the Greek vocabulary by various ways.

Neo-Aramaic as a source of hitherto unattested Aramaic words and meanings

Abstract The spectrum of Neo-Aramaic languages and dialects, spoken in an arch of language-islets that stretch from south-western Syria to south-western Iran, exhibits rich lexical repositories inherited from early layers of the Aramaic language. Within this wealthy lexical legacy, some genuine Aramaic lexical items are not attested in any of the literary Aramaic sources, hence it is only by virtue of these modern lexical manifestations that the existence of the ancient Aramaic antecedents of these words can be inferred or reconstructed. Such historical lacunae concern also meanings that must be of considerable antiquity, yet these meanings, pertaining to well-known Aramaic words, have no evidence in literary Aramaic, having surfaced only in the modern era. This article discusses ten selected cases of pre-modern Aramaic words and meanings that were discovered by etymological and comparative examination of their modern reflexes in North-Eastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA), Western Neo-Aramaic and Ṭuroyo.

Vetus Latina: Die Reste Der Altlateinischen Bibel, 14/1: Danihel, Fascicule 1: Introduction, Dn 13,1–10; Fascicule 2: Dn 13,11–64; 1,1–3,17. Edited by Jean-Claude Haelewyck

Following his delivery in recent years of the Vetus Latina editions of Esther, Judith, and the Gospel according to Mark, Professor Haelewyck now takes on the book of Daniel. This is a writing of considerable text-critical interest, in which the Old Latin versions match the variety in the Greek tradition. Tertullian, the first substantial Latin source, normally corresponds to the early (and poorly attested) Septuagint text. The exception is the disputed Adversus Iudaeos, which is based on the version attributed to Theodotion—although this Greek form actually appears to date from more than a century before Theodotion’s translation. Cyprian’s text reflects the correction of the Septuagint towards the later version, a form which persists in later African writers. The European Old Latin texts are based on the Theodotionic version: this also supplies the basis for Jerome’s Vulgate revision of the Greek additions, although the majority of Vulgate Daniel is supposedly a new translation from Hebrew and Aramaic sources. In his Commentary on Daniel, written some 24 years after his revision of the biblical text, Jerome relies on the Vulgate for the biblical lemmata but explicitly mentions variant readings from the Septuagint.

On the "ethno-classe dominante" in the First Persian Period Egypt

The following article analyzes P. Briant’s concept of the “dominant ethno-class” in Egypt during the First Persian Domination (526 – 404 BC.). According to P. Briant, the main administrative positions were held by Persian officials, who constituted a closed and culturally isolated from the Egyptians group, while the Egyptian officials were only allowed into religious and financial spheres of administration. Though some ideas of P. Briant were developed by subsequent scholars, the basis of his concept was criticized, especially the thesis of cultural isolation of Persians in Egypt. The article presents a critical evaluation of the concept forwarded by P. Briant as applied to Acaemenid Egypt. Major difficulties with applying P. Briant’s to the Egyptian evidence are due to the insufficiency of historical sources and data on some aspects of social-administrative life in Egypt during the First Persian Domination. The author draws attention to the fact that some cases of Persian acculturation during this period in fact do not reflect the situation in the first decades of the Achaemenid rule in Egypt. Moreover, the definition of the “dominant ethno-class” does not allow including all Persians present in Egypt at the time into this specific strata. While analyzing the issue of the participation of Egyptian elite in Persian administration of Egypt, author points out that the conclusions of P. Briant and D. Agut-Labordère were made on the basis of data acquired from Demotic and Aramaic sources. However, the information from the hieroglyphic inscriptions of this period provides us with data that allows to speak about the inclusion of some of the Egyptian officials into the Persian «dominant ethno-class».

Hebrew, Aramaic, Yiddish, and Judeo-Spanish Sources Concerning the History of the Jews of Romania and the History of Romania

The aim of our paper is to present the Hebrew sources – those written in Hebrew letters in Hebrew, Aramaic, Yiddish, and Judeo-Spanish (Ladino, or Djudezmo) concerned with the history of the Jews of Romania and with Romanian history. These sources are important for researching the history of the Jewish communities, being internal sources, as opposed to other sources that describe the Jewish community from outside. We shall try to answer to some questions. What are the main historical sources in the above-mentioned languages? How may these sources be classified? How can they be used and in which historical fields? Other questions refer to the methodology and to the auxiliary sciences of the history than to the history itself.

Curious Characters, Invented Scripts, and … Charlatans? “Pseudo-Scripts” in the Mesopotamian Magic Bowls

Previous articleNext article No AccessCurious Characters, Invented Scripts, and … Charlatans? “Pseudo-Scripts” in the Mesopotamian Magic BowlsDaniel James WallerDaniel James WallerRijksuniversiteit Groningen Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Near Eastern Studies Volume 78, Number 1April 2019 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/702309 Views: 254Total views on this site Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref © 2019 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Jessie DeGrado and Madadh Richey Discovering Early Syrian Magic: New Aramaic Sources for a Long-Lost Art, Near Eastern Archaeology 84, no.44 (Nov 2021): 282–292.https://doi.org/10.1086/716830

Writing Jewish Astronomy in the Early Hellenistic Age: The Enochic Astronomical Book as Aramaic Wisdom and Archival Impulse

The full publication of 4Q208 and 4Q209 in 2000 has enabled a renaissance of research on the Enochic Astronomical Book, illumining its deep connections with Babylonian scholasticism and spurring debate about the precise channels by which such “scientific” knowledge came to reach Jewish scribes. This article asks whether attention to Aramaic manuscripts related to the Astronomical Book might also reveal something about Jewish scribal pedagogy and literary production in the early Hellenistic age, particularly prior to the Maccabean Revolt. Engaging recent studies from Classics and the History of Science concerning astronomy, pedagogy, and the place of scribes and books in the cultural politics of the third century bce, it uses the test-case of the Astronomical Book to explore the potential significance of Aramaic sources for charting changes within Jewish literary cultures at the advent of Macedonian rule in the Near East.

The Historicality of the King: An Exercise in Reading Royal Inscriptions from the Ancient Levant

AbstractThe problem with using royal inscriptions as historical sources is their inherent bias. The interests of the king drive the narratives of royal inscriptions. Yet this essential feature reveals their underlying concept of history. In royal inscriptions, historical thought is defined by the life and experience of the king. This article will present a hermeneutic for reading royal inscriptions that focuses on the individual king. The article will first look at the concept of historical time in epigraphic Hebrew and Old Aramaic sources before examining the complicated ways in which this concept is rendered in the principal genres of royal writings, the memorial and the dedicatory inscription. A survey of features found in memorial inscriptions from Dibon (the Mesha Stele) and Sam’al (Kulamuwa), followed by a study of the Old Byblian dedicatory inscriptions, will explore the complex process of configuring time and narrative around the king. In each genre of royal inscription, the linear time of the ruler intersects with cyclical traditions of kingship, revealing the historicality of respective king.

The Dead Sea Scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls John J. Collins (bio) No archaeological discovery of the 20th century has aroused more interest than the Dead Sea Scrolls. Between 1947 and 1956 fragments of some 900 manuscripts dating to the time around the turn of the era were found in caves near the Dead Sea. Most of these were in Hebrew, a significant minority in Aramaic, and a few in Greek. Prior to their discovery we had no Hebrew manuscripts from that period, so the Scrolls have been a bonanza for scholars. The interest they have aroused is due in large part to the fact that they came from the time of Jesus of Nazareth. They shed light on Judaism before the rabbis and the context in which Christianity was born. Discovered in Jordanian territory in the throes of the Arab-Israeli conflict, they have also raised issues about the ownership of ancient artifacts, and they would eventually give rise to controversy about the ethics of the publication of such materials. The manuscripts may be divided into three categories. First, there are books that we know as part of the Bible. One of the first manuscripts brought to light was a copy of the Book of Isaiah that was a full millennium older than the oldest previously known Hebrew copy. Eventually fragments of all books of the Hebrew Bible except Esther were found. On the one hand, the manuscripts show that the traditional text of the Hebrew Bible (known as the Masoretic text or MT) was indeed current before the turn of the era. But on the other hand, they show that this was not the only form of the text in circulation. Different forms of the biblical text have been preserved in the Samaritan Bible and in the Greek translation known as the Septuagint or LXX. The Scrolls show that these, too, were based on Hebrew texts, and in some cases their form of the text was older than that of the MT. Scribes continued to work on the text of the Bible, smoothing out contradictions and differences, right down to the turn of the era. A second category of manuscripts describes a sectarian movement within Judaism, presumably the people who placed the Scrolls in the caves. This was a voluntary association within Judaism, with its own rituals of admission and expulsion. The members accepted the same scriptures as other Jews (although they may have had others besides), but they were estranged from the Jerusalem temple and its priesthood. Almost as soon as the Scrolls were discovered, this movement was identified as that of the Essenes, who are known from ancient Greek and Latin accounts, but are not attested by that name in Hebrew or Aramaic sources. The Essenes were something of an oddity in ancient Judaism. At least some of them were celibate, and they had communal property. For this reason, scholars have linked them to Christian monasticism, a phenomenon that did not arise until several years later. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, there was a second order of the Essenes that married. The sect known from the Scrolls also had two forms. One rule book, known as “the Damascus Document” because it refers to a new covenant in the land of Damascus, speaks of people who “live in camps according the order of the land and marry and have children,” but another, known as “The Rule of the Community” (Serek ha-Yahad in Hebrew), does not mention women or children at all. There has always been some doubt about the Essene identification, because the Scrolls never demand celibacy as a requirement, but most scholars are satisfied that the Rule of the Community was actually written for a celibate community. Click for larger view View full resolution The ruins at Qumran. From the BBC documentary Traders of the Dead Sea Scrolls (1998). Most scholars also believe that a community of this sect lived at Qumran, a site with ancient ruins near the caves. (Some of the caves are literally a stone’s throw from the ruins). The Roman writer Pliny says that Essenes lived in this general area, to the west of the Dead Sea. The ruins were excavated by the...

Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menaḥem Mendel Schneerson (review)

Reviewed by: Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menaḥem Mendel Schneerson H. D. Uriel Smith Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menaḥem Mendel Schneerson. By Elliot R. Wolfson. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. Pp. xv + 452. $35.00. In Open Secret: Postmessianic Messianism and the Mystical Revision of Menaḥem Mendel Schneerson, Elliot R. Wolfson explains sympathetically and with careful documentation the apocalyptic vision of the last Rebbe of the Ḥabad ḥasidic movement. He covers the major ranges of the Rebbe's messianism and mysticism, suggesting how these views could provide a secure emotional foundation for faith and halakhah, often leading to a sense of exaltation among his more scholarly followers, thereby confirming their faith. Wolfson's clear exposition of esoteric Kabbalist ideas, giving excellent translations of the Hebrew, Yiddish, and Aramaic sources, should continue to recommend this work to anyone who wishes to understand Ḥabad ḥasidism. Wolfson shows that these views, ostensibly orthodox, contained ideas that could easily have become subversive and heterodox. While the presentation of the Rebbe's theosophic views is the central goal of this work, Wolfson has several secondary goals in its publication. He is looking for an alternative direction in the study of Jewish philosophy and hopes that Open Secret could serve as a paradigm for this next stage of Jewish philosophy. A major methodology in developing this future philosophy is literary analysis, and he argues that explanations of divine and mundane reality involve paradoxical thinking. Wolfson hopes that with this development the experience of the Jewish universe will again incorporate a sense of the divine. Wolfson collected and analyzed Rabbi Mena.em Mendel Schneerson's cosmic perspective from the many published writings, epistles, and collections of his discourses, augmented by the teachings of the previous six Rebbes in the Lubavich dynasty. Previous scholars have shown that Jewish mysticism in general, and Ḥabad mysticism in particular, involved aḥdut ha-shaweh, the paradoxical unification of opposites, in the ascent to God. Such a mystical stance occurs in many religious societies. It is found in Taoism, Gnosticism, and Sufi Islam. A similar paradoxical pattern was maintained in Christian mysticism and Process Theology. However, there are basic differences among these forms of mysticism. In contrast to the Kabbalist perspective, Process Theology questions the omnipotence of God, and recognizes the universe to be the body of God. Wolfson noted that similar paradoxes are found in Buddhist mysticism (pp. 109-114). Buddhism differs from the Kabbalah in its views on divine discourse. In many ways nirvana in Buddhism is equivalent to the ayin in Kabbalah. Yet, while Buddhists recognize that bodhisattvas (individuals on the path to enlightenment) communicate with their fellow humans before their final assumption into nirvana, they deny any such discourse from nirvana. In contrast, [End Page 264] Judaism and its Kabbalah affirm that God continues to communicate through the Torah and prophets with the religious faithful. In Open Secret Wolfson shows that the seventh Lubavich Rebbe continued in many ways the paradoxical stance set by his predecessors (pp. 2-3, 102-103, 247). The Lubavich leaders described publicly the divine communication of the secret Torah. For them these esoteric teachings were secrets that should be revealed to all of Israel, and to the Ḥabad membership in particular. Part of the time they are so secret that the secrecy itself is kept secret (pp. 28-65). The esoteric process of creation involved "apophatic embodiment," combining the formless invisible ayin (nothingness) with the embodied universe, this corporeal world within which the Jews fulfill the embodied mitzvot. The universe is a phenomenal one emanating from and founded upon belimah (nonexistence). The authorized rites involve corporeal acts that emotionally and rationally eradicate corporeal reality (biṭṭul ha-yesh), subordinating the worshipper to ayin (nothing), the ayn sof (infinite) from which all reality emanates. Time and space and corporeality are all negated by converging "the opposites in one subject" (p. 145). The worshipper incorporates the exoteric Torah (torah hanigleit) with the esoteric Torah (satim de-orayyta) (pp. 171-179), the Torah revealed publicly at Sinai with the Torah that both existed before the revelation and will be the messianic Torah leading...

Qaddish: Untersuchungen zur Entstehung und Rezeption eines rabbinischen Gebetes (review)

Reviewed by: Qaddish: Untersuchungen zur Entstehung und Rezeption eines rabbinischen Gebetes Ra‘anan S. Boustan Andreas Lehnardt. Qaddish: Untersuchungen zur Entstehung und Rezeption eines rabbinischen Gebetes. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism 87. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002. Pp. xiv + 386. The ubiquity and elasticity of the Kaddish (alt. Qaddish) within Jewish liturgical practice has made this brief, but enigmatic prayer a perennial object of both scholarly and popular interest. It is our great fortune that we now have a study that has done justice to the complexity and specificity of the historical development of the Kaddish. In a monograph that is focused and sweeping in equal measure, Andreas Lehnardt sets out to explain both how and why the Kaddish emerged as a major structuring element within the Jewish liturgy at the same time that it attracted a diverse range of liturgical applications. Lehnardt's study is grounded in the methodological insight that the histories of (Jewish) prayers such as the Kaddish, with their fluctuating textual identities and heterogeneous liturgical functions, must integrate text-historical, literary-historical, and reception-historical considerations. Studies of early Jewish worship in particular are constrained by the decentralized nature of Jewish religious practice as well as the complex process of Jewish textual transmission. By employing such tools, Lehnardt turns obstacles into opportunities for illuminating key moments in the dynamic history of the Kaddish, while acknowledging the epistemological limits imposed by the evidence. It is thus no coincidence that his account begins in the Middle Ages with the oldest extant textual witnesses for the Kaddish, then backs up into Late Antiquity to explore earlier, indirect testimonies about its language and function, and finally moves forward in time again to describe the various medieval appropriations of this late antique prayer. Lehnardt argues in chapter one (pp. 15–77) that the Kaddish, in both its earliest and its fully crystallized forms, is characterized by generic and linguistic hybridity. Despite this high degree of textual variation, all versions of the Kaddish are characterized by a distinctive admixture of Hebrew and Aramaic juxtaposed within single sentences and even clauses. Numerous earlier scholars suggested that this peculiar linguistic feature reflects the process of translation from a Hebrew original to an [End Page e65] artificial Aramaic "school language." Through careful linguistic comparison of the Kaddish with contemporaneous Hebrew and Aramaic sources, especially Targumic Aramaic, Lehnardt concludes that the prayer cannot be assigned to a specific linguistic-institutional context, but exhibits the general (Hebrew and Aramaic) linguistic features of rabbinic literature. Moreover, the Hebrew units of the Kaddish, which are interwoven with its Aramaic building-blocks, cannot be accounted for as mere back-borrowings. The inseparability of Hebrew and Aramaic within the Kaddish indicates that it was a linguistic hybrid ("ein Mischprodukt") from its earliest stages of development and never existed in a "pure" linguistic form in either Hebrew or Aramaic. According to Lehnardt, the bilingual character of the Kaddish has its counterpart in the prayer's hybrid generic form. The Kaddish resists generic definition, although it employs doxological formulae (i.e. yehe sheme raba mevarakh) and formally resembles certain features of prayers linked to public Scriptural reading (e.g., the 'al ha-kol prayer and the Yekum purkan). Lehnardt rejects the findings of Joseph Heinemann's form-critical method, which placed the Kaddish squarely within the rabbinic study-house (bet ha-midrash). Instead, he argues that, from a formal perspective, the Kaddish cannot be assigned to a single Sitz-im-Leben, and proposes that its generic and linguistic hybridity result from its shifting application in various institutional settings—synagogue as well as study-house. In chapter two (pp. 79–142), Lehnardt analyzes rabbinic sources that provide evidence for the liturgical function of the Kaddish or illuminate the ways in which its meaning and power were conceived in Late Antiquity. The linguistic and formal flexibility of the Kaddish corresponds to its varied reception within classical rabbinic literature. The Kaddish did not develop along a single, linear trajectory from pre-rabbinic prayers such as the Lord's Prayer found in the New Testament, but emerged through an unsystematic process of expansion, reinterpretation, and redeployment. Indeed, the Kaddish is nowhere attested as a fully crystallized...

Late Aramaic: The Literary and Linguistic Context of the Zohar

AbstractThis article introduces a new research project focusing on the Aramaic language of the Zohar—the most influential work in the literary canon of the Jewish mystical tradition. The Zohar is generally assumed by scholars to have been written in Spain during the final decades of the thirteenth century, although traditional kabbalists and Orthodox Jews believe that it was authored by its main protagonist, Rabbi Shimon bar Yohai, in second-century Palestine. While not disputing the late medieval provenance of the work, this article challenges the standard scholarly opinion whereby the Aramaic in which it was written was an artificially manufactured idiom, drawing its vocabulary, grammar and syntax indiscriminately from a variety of 'genuine' Aramaic sources. Part I of this study demonstrates that some of the most distinctive 'flaws' of zoharic Aramaic are attested in a wide range of much earlier Aramaic sources. Part II, which will be published separately, as a sequel, concerns the related question of the Palestinian setting of the Zohar.

Review: Aramaic Sources of Mark's Gospel

Review: Aramaic Sources of Mark's Gospel

NHC II,2 and the Oxyrhynchus Fragments (P.Oxy 1, 654, 655): Overlooked Evidence for a Syriac Gospel of Thomas

AbstractWhereas it is generally assumed that the Gospel of Thomas was first composed in Greek, here the author finds evidence, confirming his earlier published thesis, that the well-known Nag Hammadi text was first set down in Syriac. On comparing divergences between the Greek witness to Thomas (P.Oxy 1, 654, 655) and the fuller Coptic version (NHC II,2), it is argued that each of these differences can be readily attributed to the texts' final reliance on a common Aramaic source. In most instances, the hypothesized shared source may be inferred to be of either western Aramaic or Syriac character, but in some cases, the evidence points decisively toward Syriac-speaking provenance. Consequently, the investigation sheds light not only on the relationship between the two extant witnesses of Thomas, but on its dating as well.

Aramaic Idiom and the Son of Man Problem: A Response to Owen and Shepherd

Aramaic was a relatively stable language for centuries before and after the time of Jesus. This stable situation has been clarified by the Dead Sea scrolls. The Aramaic scrolls can safely be used to reconstruct sayings of Jesus. However, they do not form a whole language, and there was no firm barrier between the Aramaic of the time of Jesus and later Aramaic, nor between East and West. We must therefore make careful use of later sources too. Aramaic sources from before the time of Jesus provide evidence of the optional use of the emphatic state in generic expressions. This forms the cultural and linguistic context for the idiomatic use of [UNKNOWN][UNKNOWN][UNKNOWN][UNKNOWN][UNKNOWN] in either the emphatic or absolute state, as attested in later sources.

Aramaic Sources of Mark's Gospel

Aramaic Sources of Mark's Gospel

Beetlemania of Bygone Times

The biblical terms [Formula: see text] in Deut. 28.42 and [Formula: see text] in Isa. 18.1 were never satisfactorily defined. A thorough analysis of ancient Egyptian texts, classical literature, Aramaic and rabbinic sources, post-biblical texts and archaeological material suggests that [Formula: see text] in the Pentateuch means beetle and Isaiah's phrase can be translated ‘land of the winged beetle’, that is, Egypt. Moreover, the Egyptian beetle metaphorically could represent a (sacred) boat and in Christian commentary, crucified Jesus. Though viewed as abominable, the beetle was used as a potent drug in eastern Mediterranean communities down to the middle ages. Influence of time-honoured Egyptian culture left a distinct mark on the contiguous communities. Small wonder that the Bible, even talmudic literature, incorporated some of its tastes.

The Pronominal Suffix of the Second Feminine Singular in the Aramaic Texts From the Judean Desert

This paper seeks to examine one grammatical feature of the Aramaic documents from the Judean Desert: the 2nd feminine singular pronominal suffix on singular nouns and prepositions. In general, forms of the 2nd feminine singular are attested poorly, if at all, in early Aramaic sources. Thus, it is not surprising that there are no examples in inscriptions dating from the Old Aramaic period.' Although the suffix does occur in Official Aramaic in the papyri from Egypt (Elephantine and Hermopolis), it is absent from Biblical Aramaic. 2nd feminine singular pronominal suffix is found in Middle Aramaic, though there, too, it is not frequent and is not attested in all corpora. There are some dozen examples in targums Onqelos and Jonathan, but to the best of my knowledge, the suffix is attested only once in Palmyrene and not at all in Nabatean or Hatran. Judean Desert texts contain several additional examples of the suffix and, for this reason, provide important evidence for its history. 2nd feminine singular suffix is represented orthographically in documents from the Judean Desert by 9:-, ',-, I-, and 1J-. Do the four spellings reflect only one underlying realization of the suffix, or do the different orthographies represent the different phonetic realizations that are known elsewhere in Aramaic from vocalized texts: [-*1 in targums Onqelos and Jonathan, and [-ek] in Syriac? Cf. also -[eki], which is reflected in the Syriac ketiv. Few scholars have discussed the pronunciation underlying the orthographies. One is K. Beyer, who, without elaborating, has reconstructed [-eki] for the forms I-, 'I-, and (1%).2 Another is T. Muraoka, who, in discussing the forms 'Dand 'in the Genesis Apocryphon, cautiously remarks that The

Ejemplos del griego rabinico a la luz del tesoro lexicográfico del <i>DGE</i>

Rabbinical Greek is defined as the Greek vocabulary which emerged in Aramaic and Hebrew sources from the first century B.C. until the end of the Byzantine period. The study of this vocabulary enlarges our understanding of the lexicon of religious life and political administration in the Roman East, as well as increasing our recognition of phonetical phenomena in the transition from κοινή to Byzantine and Modern Greek. The present work is devoted to the study of the Greek words in Genesis Rabba , a traditional Jewish commentary written in Palestine during the Byzantine period. The proper use of the DGE and its catalogue was helpful for a better understanding and interpretation of these rabbinical sources and their Hellenistic heritage.